Young Stars: Gamma Rays from Jets express
Stars are born in cold clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen. Inside these cocoons, protostars — the cores of future suns — were long thought to be just hot clumps. But it turns out many of them are powerful accelerators: they shoot out narrow jets of gas that, slamming into surrounding matter, produce invisible gamma-ray light.
These protostars are scattered throughout the Milky Way. The brighter the star in ordinary light (its total luminosity), the more powerful its gamma-ray jets. This means that particle acceleration is a key stage in a star's coming of age. Gamma rays help us study how stars churn up material in their cradles, influencing the birth of planets.
Protostellar jets accelerate protons to 99.99% the speed of light — faster than any human-made particle accelerator.