A bright patch of nebulosity created when jets of gas ejected by young protostars collide with surrounding interstellar material at high speeds, creating shock waves that ionize and heat the gas. These objects are visible markers of active star formation and stellar outflows.
Named after astronomers George Herbig and Guillermo Haro who independently discovered and studied these objects in the 1940s and 1950s. The hyphenated naming convention reflects their simultaneous but separate identification of these peculiar nebular features associated with star formation.
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