Telescope unveils a stellar deception

A heavenly masquerade may shed light on the nature of astrophysical jets—the beams of material spewed by a wide variety of celestial objects.

Top: Image of Hen 2-90, some 8,000 light-years away, shows pair of directed jets. X-shaped streaks are artifacts. Bottom: The object’s disk (arrow), seen edge on. NASA, Sahai, Nyman

Astronomers came upon the stellar puzzle while observing a dust-shrouded body called Hen 2-90 with the Hubble Space Telescope.