The mystery that lies in this image is the object in front of the bow shock of the outflow, just left of centre of the field of view.
At the time, astronomers thought it might be a star, surrounded by a faint halo. They also weren't sure if it was associated with the outflow in some way, or just a complete coincidence that it showed up right at the tip of the tornado.
Close to 20 years later, new imagery of Herbig-Haro 49/50 from the James Webb Space Telescope has now solved the mystery!
Herbig-Haro-49-50-Cosmic-Tornado-Spitzer-JWST-compare-NASA
A side-by-side comparison of HH 49/50 from the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2006 (left) versus Webb in 2025 (right). The Webb image shows off the intricate details of the 'cosmic tornado' far better, but it also resolves the “fuzzy” object located at the tip of the outflow into a distant spiral galaxy. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, SSC)
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Webb and Spitzer are both infrared telescopes, capable of gathering wavelengths of light that are beyond the human eye's ability to see. The difference between the two is that Webb is far more advanced, with a mirror 45 times bigger than Spitzer's for collecting light, and instruments far better at processing that captured light into useful images of the universe. Spitzer was advanced for its time, but Webb is just a reflection of technology getting better over the past two decades.
Webb's much higher resolution view of HH-49/50 has revealed that the mystery object isn't just one star, but billions of them, grouped together in a galaxy located far outside our Milky Way.
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A closeup of the unnamed spiral galaxy originally captured in the Spitzer image from 2006, but shown here in much greater detail thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI)
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"The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of Herbig-Haro 49/50 is a much more distant spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars. It also displays hints of 'side lobes', suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars," the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a recent press release.