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Artist's conception of the development of W75N(B)-VLA-2. In this image, a hot wind from the young star expands nearly spherically, as seen in 1996. The scientists believe the young star is forming in a dense, gaseous environment, and is surrounded by a doughnut-shaped, dusty torus. The star has episodes in which it ejects a hot, ionized wind for several years.
At first, that wind can expand in all directions, and so forms a spherical shell around the star. Later, the wind hits the dusty torus, which slows it. Wind expanding outward along the poles of the torus, where there is less resistance, moves more quickly, resulting in an elongated shape for the outflow. A pair of images of this young star, made 18 years apart, has revealed a dramatic difference that is providing astronomers with a unique, "real-time" look at how massive stars develop in the earliest stages of their formation.Image credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
