NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室

2023年4月22日

NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
Image Credit: Science – NASA, ESA, STScI, Processing – Varun Bajaj (STScI),
Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Jennifer Mack (STScI)

Explanation: In visible light NGC 1333 is seen as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This Hubble Space Telescope close-up frames a region just over 1 light-year wide at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago. Hubble’s stunning image of the stellar nursery was released to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the space telescope’s launch.

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NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室
影像提供: 科学 – NASA, ESA, STScI, 影像处理 – Varun Bajaj (STScI),
Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Jennifer Mack (STScI)

说明: 在可见光波段，NGC 1333是个反射星云，以星际尘埃反射星光的特征蓝色为主要色彩。位在英仙座方向、距离我们只有1,000光年远的此星云，座落在一个庞大正在诞生恒星的分子云之边缘。这幅来自哈勃太空望远镜的特写影像，以NGC 1313的距离来换算，涵盖了略大于1光年宽的区域。影像除了呈现这团尘埃云的细微结构之外，也记录了近期恒星诞生所造成的泛红赫比格-赫罗天体、喷流和震波所激发的明亮云气。NGC 1333拥有数百颗不到1百万年稚龄的恒星，不过受到无所不在的星尘之遮掩，大多数在光学望远镜不得见。此外，NGC 1333所在的这种喧嚣场合，可能和45亿年前我们太阳形成时的环境相近。这幅哈勃为此恒星育婴室所拍摄的美丽新影像，用以庆祝哈勃太空望远镜发射升空的33周年。

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