Jets of partially ionized gas emerging from a young star produce visible shocks upon impact with the ambient medium.

It also contains a mostly unipolar molecular outflow, and two large bow shocks on opposite sides of the source star.

In this model stellar winds from T Tauri stars would collide with the surrounding medium and generate shocks leading to emission.

[5][8] An image of a Question Mark associated with the object was reported on 18 August 2023 in The New York Times.

[9] During early stages of formation, stars launch bipolar outflows of partially ionized material along the rotation axis.

[10] The source of HH 46/47 is a binary class I protostar located inside a dark cloud of gas and dust, undetectable at visual wavelengths.

[b] Upon impacting the surrounding medium, the jet drives shocks in it, which lead to emission in the visible spectrum.

The counterjet is invisible as it is moving away from Earth into the dark cloud that hosts the star inside it.

[c] The bent and twisted appearance of the outflow is caused by variations in the ejection direction, i.e., precession of the source star.

[10][14] The whole structure is projected at approximately 30° with respect to the sky plane; this makes its actual length around 3 parsecs.

The presence of ices implies that the dusty shroud of the star is cool as opposed to the jet and shock regions where temperatures reach thousands of degrees.