<i>Hubble Space Telescope</i>Observations of the Disk and Jet of HH 30

Abstract

HH 30 in Taurus has been imaged with the Hubble Space T elescope WFPC2. The images show in reected light a ared disk with a radius of about 250 AU that obscures the protostar. The disk resembles detailed accretion disk models that constrain its density distribution and show that its inclination is less than 10. There are bipolar emission-line jets perpendicular to the disk, a very clear demonstration of the standard paradigm for accretion disk and jet systems. However, asymmetries in the light distribution show that the disk has not completely settled into a quasi-equilibrium accretion state, or that some of the observed scattering is from an asymmetric envelope. The emission-line jet itself is resolved into a number of knots with typical lengths and separations of much smaller and more numerous than 0A .4, indicated by lower resolution ground-based studies. There are indications of still ner structures in the jet all the way to the resolution limit of