Sun-Like Star Spotted at Birth

Hubble sees the dawn of a stellar new object

A trio of stars at various stages of emergence have been spotted swaddled in the cloud of gas and dust from which they were forged. One of the stars—not yet fully formed—looks to be on its way to being much like our sun. The nebula of gas and dust shines not on its own but thanks to reflected light from the stars.

The trio of stars seen in a Hubble image released this spring. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

The Hubble Space Telescope team explained the trio in the image:

“The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to our sun.”

The emerging sun-like star is likely younger than 10 million years old. Our sun is around 4.6 billion years old.