![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Young-Sun-HD-61005-Blowing-Bubbles-Credit-NASA-et-al-1024x579.jpg\")
Young \u2018Sun\u2019 Caught Blowing Bubbles in X-ray and Infrared light. Credit for X-ray image: NASA\/CXC\/Johns Hopkins Univ.\/C.M. Lisse (Credit for Infrared image: NASA\/ESA\/STIS; Image Processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/N. Wolk)<\/p>\n Young \u2018Sun\u2019 Caught Blowing Bubbles in X-ray and Infrared light. Credit for X-ray image: NASA\/CXC\/Johns Hopkins Univ.\/C.M. Lisse (Credit for Infrared image: NASA\/ESA\/STIS; Image Processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/N. Wolk)<\/p>\n
For the first time, a much younger version of the Sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy, by astronomers using NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory.<\/p>\n
The bubble\u2014called an astrosphere\u2014completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star\u2019s surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot gas as it expands into much cooler galactic gas and dust surrounding the star.<\/p>\n
Our Sun has a similar bubble around it, which scientists call the heliosphere, created by the solar wind. It extends far beyond the planets in our solar system and protects Earth from damaging particles from interstellar space.<\/p>\n
This is the first image of an astrosphere astronomers have obtained around a star similar to the Sun. It shows slightly extended emission, rather than a single point of light as seen for other such stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been studying our Sun\u2019s astrosphere for decades, but we can\u2019t see it from the outside,\u201d said Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who led the study which was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal. \u201cThis new Chandra result about a similar star\u2019s astrosphere teaches us about the shape of the Sun\u2019s, and how it has changed over billions of years as the Sun evolves and moves through the galaxy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The star is called HD 61005 and is located about 120 light-years from Earth, making it relatively close. HD 61005 has roughly the same mass and temperature as the Sun, but it is much younger with an age of about 100 million years, compared to the Sun\u2019s age of about 5 billion years.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Young-Sun-HD-61005-Blowing-Bubbles-Images-in-X-ray-and-Infrared-and-Optical-light-NASACXCJohns-Hopki.jpeg\")
Young Sun HD 61005 Blowing Bubbles \u2013 Credit: (X-ray) NASA\/CXC\/Johns Hopkins Univ.\/C.M. Lisse et al; (Infrared) Credit: NASA\/ESA\/STIS; (Optical) Credit: NSF\/NoirLab\/CTIO\/DECaPS2; Image Processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/N. Wolk<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s so young, HD 61005 has a much stronger wind of particles blowing from its surface that travels about 3 times faster and is about 25 times denser than the wind from the Sun. This amplifies the process of astrosphere bubble-blowing and mimics how our Sun was behaving several billion years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are impacted by the Sun every day, not only through the light it gives off, but also by the wind it sends out into space that can affect our satellites and potentially astronauts traveling to the Moon or Mars,\u201d said<\/a> co-author Scott Wolk of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). \u201cThis image of the astrosphere around HD 61005 gives us important information about what the Sun\u2019s wind may have been like early in its evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n Astronomers have nicknamed the HD 61005 star system the \u201cMoth\u201d because it is surrounded by large amounts of dust patterned similarly to the shape of a moth\u2019s wings when viewed through infrared telescopes. The wings are formed from material left behind after the formation of the star, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our own solar system. Observations of these wings<\/a> with NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope showed that the interstellar matter surrounding HD 61005 is about a thousand times denser than that around the Sun.<\/p>\n Since the 1990s, astronomers have been trying to capture an image of an astrosphere around a Sun-like star. Chandra was able to detect the astrosphere around HD 61005 because it is producing X-rays as the stellar wind runs into cooler interstellar dust and gas that surrounds the star.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/left-the-Moth-as-imaged-by-the-Hubble-Space-Telescope-1024x586.jpg\")
(left) the Moth as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope<\/p>\n