Question on how jQuery obects work in this video

I have a question on how the append method works in this video. Andrew initially writes these two statements:

var $select = $("<select></select>"); $("#menu").append($select);

This appends the pair of select element tags to the #menu in the HTML (I think!).

Then he writes the code to iterate through the #menu anchors in the HTML and creates a select option for each anchor in the #menu. As each iteration though the menu anchors occurs, these statements are performed to create the individual $options for the $select:

var $anchor = $(this); var $option = $("<option></option>"); $option.val($anchor.attr("href")); $option.text($anchor.text());

and finally this statement:

$select.append($option);

My question is to be sure I understand this properly. I first thought that what he would be appending to the $select each time would be this: <option></option> and then the href and then the text…and I was confused because I thought the href and text needed to be between the <option> and </option> tags…But is what he is appending actually a detached jQuery object that he has created by using the $ in front of $option when he creates the var $option as the statement above is executed to do this? And then he adds the href and the text as object properties into that object and then finally adds this new $option object into the <select></select> object? And it is because these are objects, and not just a sequential set of data items that all this works? Am I understanding this correctly??? Thanks in advance for info or comments!