The motivation for this project was an observation of the stellar outflow from the source HH34* in Orion, published in June 1994 (6 months before the class began) by Bally & Devine (ApJ 428, L65). These authors identified a train of Herbig Haro objects extending in a line from the source of the stellar jet responsible for HH34. This chain of HH objects stretches 1.5 pc in length, far longer than the previously assumed length of the stellar jet (if it ended at HH34) of 0.2 pc. Given the remarkable properties of the outflow if indeed this chain was related to a single source, the authors coined the term "superjet".

This new discovery provided students with the opportunity to apply standard research tools (computational hydrodynamics) to a new problem in astrophysics. After background research on stellar jets and Herbig-Haro objects, the class developed competing theories to explain the origin of the long train of bowshocks observed in alignment with the young stellar object, HH34*. The students then used a computational hydrodynamics code to study the consequences of their theories, and compare them with the observed properties of the HH34 Superjet.