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This artist's concept shows a still-forming protostar which is accreting material from a surrounding disk. Some of the material from the disk, rather than falling onto the star, is ejected outward in a bipolar jet. New measurements from the Submillimeter Array show that matter in the jet is rotating around the jet's axis in a sort of "reverse whirlpool," which carries angular momentum away from the system and helps the star grow.

This composite photograph of Herbig-Haro 211 shows submm data from the Submillimeter Array (blue and red) and near-infrared data from the European Very Large Telescope (gray). The SMA data were color-coded blue for approaching (blue-shifted) material and red for receding (red-shifted) material. The VLT shows shocked molecular hydrogen emission produced by the jet.