HD 163296:形成中恒星的喷流

HD 163296:形成中恒星的喷流

2021年06月22日 HD 163296: Jet from a Star in Formation Image Credit: Visible: VLT/MUSE (ESO); Radio: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) Explanation: How are jets created during star formation? No one is sure, although recent images of the young star system HD 163296 are quite illuminating. The central star in the featured image is still forming but seen already surrounded by a rotating disk and an outward moving jet. The disk is shown in radio waves taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and show gaps likely created by the gravity of very-young planets. The jet, shown in visible light taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT, also in Chile), expels fast-moving gas — mostly hydrogen — from the disk center. The system spans hundreds of…

项链星云的喷流

项链星云的喷流

2021年05月18日 Jets from the Necklace Nebula Image Credit: ESA, Hubble, NASA; Processing: K. Noll Explanation: What celestial body wears the Necklace Nebula? First, analyses indicate that the Necklace is a planetary nebula, a gas cloud emitted by a star toward the end of its life. Also, what appears to be diamonds in the Necklace are actually bright knots of glowing gas. In the center of the Necklace Nebula are likely two stars orbiting so close together that they share a common atmosphere and appear as one in the featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope. The red-glowing gas clouds on the upper left and lower right are the results of jets from the center. Exactly when and how the bright jets formed remains a topic…

动画:黑洞如何摧毁恒星

动画:黑洞如何摧毁恒星

2021年04月27日 Animation: Black Hole Destroys Star Video Illustration Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab Explanation: What happens if a star gets too close to a black hole? The black hole can rip it apart — but how? It’s not the high gravitational attraction itself that’s the problem — it’s the difference in gravitational pull across the star that creates the destruction. In the featured animated video illustrating this disintegration, you first see a star approaching the black hole. Increasing in orbital speed, the star’s outer atmosphere is ripped away during closest approach. Much of the star’s atmosphere disperses into deep space, but some continues to orbit the black hole and forms an accretion disk. The animation then takes you into the accretion disk while looking toward…

星系半人马座A的喷流

星系半人马座A的喷流

2021年01月17日 Jets from Unusual Galaxy Centaurus A Image Credit: ESO/WFI (visible); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A. Weiss et al. (microwave); NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Kraft et al. (X-ray) Explanation: The jets emanating from Centaurus A are over a million light years long. These jets of streaming plasma, expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image of Cen A. Exactly how the central black hole expels infalling matter remains unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets inflate large radio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years. If energized by a passing gas cloud, the radio bubbles can even light up again after billions of years. X-ray light is depicted in the featured composite image in blue, while microwave light is colored…

三叶星云的气柱与喷流

三叶星云的气柱与喷流

2020年12月22日 Trifid Pillars and Jets Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope, HLA; Processing: Advait Mehla Explanation: Dust pillars are like interstellar mountains. They survive because they are more dense than their surroundings, but they are being slowly eroded away by a hostile environment. Visible in the featured picture is the end of a huge gas and dust pillar in the Trifid Nebula (M20), punctuated by a smaller pillar pointing up and an unusual jet pointing to the left. Many of the dots are newly formed low-mass stars. A star near the small pillar’s end is slowly being stripped of its accreting gas by radiation from a tremendously brighter star situated off the top of the image. The jet extends nearly a light-year and would…

SS 433:双星系统形成的微类星体

SS 433:双星系统形成的微类星体

2020年8月31日 SS 433: Binary Star Micro-Quasar Animation Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab Explanation: SS 433 is one of the most exotic star systems known. Its unremarkable name stems from its inclusion in a catalog of Milky Way stars which emit radiation characteristic of atomic hydrogen. Its remarkable behavior stems from a compact object, a black hole or neutron star, which has produced an accretion disk with jets. Because the disk and jets from SS 433 resemble those surrounding supermassive black holes in the centers of distant galaxies, SS 433 is considered a micro-quasar. As illustrated in the animated featured video based on observational data, a massive, hot, normal star is locked in orbit with the compact object. As the video starts, material is shown being…