Posts tagged spitzer.

Stars Adorn Orion’s Sword “This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion — an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun. Some are even more massive. These massive stars light up the Orion nebula, which is seen here as the bright region near the center of the image. To the north of the Orion nebula is a dark filamentary cloud of cold dust and gas, over 5 light-years in length, containing ruby red protostars that jewel the hilt of Orion’s sword. These are the newest generation of stars in this stellar nursery, and include the protostar HOPS 68, where Spitzer spotted tiny green crystals in a surrounding cloud of gas”  Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Megeath (University of Toledo, Ohio)

Stars Adorn Orion’s Sword

“This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion — an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun. Some are even more massive. These massive stars light up the Orion nebula, which is seen here as the bright region near the center of the image.

To the north of the Orion nebula is a dark filamentary cloud of cold dust and gas, over 5 light-years in length, containing ruby red protostars that jewel the hilt of Orion’s sword. These are the newest generation of stars in this stellar nursery, and include the protostar HOPS 68, where Spitzer spotted tiny green crystals in a surrounding cloud of gas” 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Megeath (University of Toledo, Ohio)

14 ♥ 5.26.11
New View of the Great Nebula in Carina “Eta Carinae is one of the most massive and brightest stars in the Milky Way. Compared to our own Sun, it is about 100 times as massive and a million times as bright. This famed variable hypergiant star (upper center) is surrounded by the Carina Nebula. In this composite image spanning the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum, areas that appear blue are not obscured by dust, while areas that appear red are hidden behind dark clouds of dust in visible light. A study combining X-ray and Infrared observations has revealed a new population of massive stars lurking in regions of the nebula that are highly obscured by dust. Adding these new massive stars to the known massive stars suggests that the Carina Nebula will produce twice as many supernova explosions as previously supposed. Visible light in the blue part of the spectrum from the Digital Sky Survey is represented as blue, near infrared light with a wavelength of 2.2 microns from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) is green, and infrared observations from the Infrared Array Camera on NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope at 3.6 microns is red” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Povich (Penn State Univ.)

New View of the Great Nebula in Carina

“Eta Carinae is one of the most massive and brightest stars in the Milky Way. Compared to our own Sun, it is about 100 times as massive and a million times as bright. This famed variable hypergiant star (upper center) is surrounded by the Carina Nebula. In this composite image spanning the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum, areas that appear blue are not obscured by dust, while areas that appear red are hidden behind dark clouds of dust in visible light. A study combining X-ray and Infrared observations has revealed a new population of massive stars lurking in regions of the nebula that are highly obscured by dust. Adding these new massive stars to the known massive stars suggests that the Carina Nebula will produce twice as many supernova explosions as previously supposed.

Visible light in the blue part of the spectrum from the Digital Sky Survey is represented as blue, near infrared light with a wavelength of 2.2 microns from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) is green, and infrared observations from the Infrared Array Camera on NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope at 3.6 microns is red”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Povich (Penn State Univ.)

6 ♥ 5.26.11
Eyes in the Sky “These shape-shifting galaxies have taken on the form of a giant mask. The icy blue eyes are actually the cores of two merging galaxies, called NGC 2207 and IC 2163, and the mask is their spiral arms. The false-colored image consists of infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red) and visible data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (blue/green). NGC 2207 and IC 2163 met and began a sort of gravitational tango about 40 million years ago. The two galaxies are tugging at each other, stimulating new stars to form. Eventually, this cosmic ball will come to an end, when the galaxies meld into one. The dancing duo is located 140 million light-years away in the Canis Major constellation. The infrared data from Spitzer highlight the galaxies’ dusty regions, while the visible data from Hubble indicates starlight. In the Hubble-only image (not pictured here), the dusty regions appear as dark lanes. The Hubble data correspond to light with wavelengths of .44 and .55 microns (blue and green, respectively). The Spitzer data represent light of 8 microns.” Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/Vassar

Eyes in the Sky

“These shape-shifting galaxies have taken on the form of a giant mask. The icy blue eyes are actually the cores of two merging galaxies, called NGC 2207 and IC 2163, and the mask is their spiral arms. The false-colored image consists of infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red) and visible data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (blue/green).

NGC 2207 and IC 2163 met and began a sort of gravitational tango about 40 million years ago. The two galaxies are tugging at each other, stimulating new stars to form. Eventually, this cosmic ball will come to an end, when the galaxies meld into one. The dancing duo is located 140 million light-years away in the Canis Major constellation.

The infrared data from Spitzer highlight the galaxies’ dusty regions, while the visible data from Hubble indicates starlight. In the Hubble-only image (not pictured here), the dusty regions appear as dark lanes.

The Hubble data correspond to light with wavelengths of .44 and .55 microns (blue and green, respectively). The Spitzer data represent light of 8 microns.”

Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/Vassar

9 ♥ 5.7.11