Do Water Fountain Jets Really Indicate the Onset of the Morphological
  Metamorphosis of Circumstellar Envelopes?
  The small-scale bipolar jets having short dynamical ages from "water fountain
(WF)" sources are regarded as an indication of the onset of circumstellar
envelope morphological metamorphosis of intermediate-mass stars. Such process
usually happens at the end of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. However,
recent studies found that WFs could be AGB stars or even early planetary
nebulae. This fact prompted the idea that WFs may not necessarily be objects at
the beginning of the morphological transition process. In the present work, we
show that WFs could have different envelope morphologies by studying their
spectral energy distribution profiles. Some WFs have spherical envelopes that
resembles usual AGB stars, while others have aspherical envelopes which are
more common to post-AGB stars. The results imply that WFs may not represent the
earliest stage of the morphological metamorphosis. We further argue that the
dynamical age of a WF jet, which can be calculated from maser proper motions,
may not be the real age of the jet. The dynamical age cannot be used to justify
the moment when the envelope begins to become aspherical, nor to tell the
concrete evolutionary status of the object. A WF jet could be the innermost
part of a larger well-developed jet, which is not necessarily a young jet.
