航向宇宙暗礁

2020 May 18

Journey into the Cosmic Reef
Video Credit: NASA’s GSFC, SVS; Lead Producer & Music: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Explanation: What would you see if you could fly into the Cosmic Reef? The nebular cloud NGC 2014 appear to some like an ocean reef that resides in the sky, specifically in the LMC, the largest satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. A detailed image of this distant nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to help commemorate 30 years of investigating the cosmos. Data and images of this cosmic reef have been combined into the three-dimensional model flown through in the featured video. The computer animated sequence first takes you past a star cluster highlighted by bright blue stars, below pillars of gas and dust slowly being destroyed by the energetic light and winds emitted by these massive stars. Filaments of gas and dust are everywhere, glowing in the red light of hydrogen and nitrogen. The animation next takes you to the blue-colored nebula NGC 2020, glowing in light emitted by oxygen and surrounding a Wolf-Rayet star about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun — a nebula thought to be the ejected outer atmosphere of this stellar monster. As the animation concludes, the virtual camera pivots to show that NGC 2020 has a familiar hourglass shape when viewed from the side.

Follow APOD on Instagram in: English, Indonesian, Persian, or Portuguese

Tomorrow’s picture: NASA posters (free)

航向宇宙暗礁
影片提供: NASA’s GSFC, SVS; Lead Producer & Music: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

说明: 如果你航向一片宇宙暗礁，你会见到什么？对有些人来说，星云NGC 2014的云气，看似位在大麦哲伦星系（我们银河系最大的伴星系）内的一大片暗礁。为庆祝探索宇宙的30周年，哈伯太空望远镜为这个遥远的星云，拍摄了一些非常细致的影像。这些记录这片宇宙暗礁的影像和数据，后来建构成三维模型，成为这部主题影片穿过的景观。这部电脑动画开头的片段，带你通过位在气体和尘埃柱下方，一个拥有许多明亮泛蓝恒星的星团。而这些大质量成员星发出的高能星光和恒星风，正缓缓的分解这些云气柱。视野中，到处都是丝缕状的气体和尘埃，其内的氢和氮散发出泛红的辉光。接着这部动画带你前往染蓝的星云NGC 2020，这团星云内的氧之所以会发光，是受一颗亮度为太阳200,000倍以上的沃夫-瑞叶型恒星之激发，而这团星云被认为就是这颗怪兽恒星抛出的外层气壳。在动画的结尾时，虚拟的相机转向，让我们得以窥见在侧视时，NGC 2020拥有酷似沙漏的形状。

在Instagram上关注APOD：英语、印尼语、波斯语或葡萄牙语