礁湖星云的深空影像

礁湖星云的深空影像

ByNASA中文

2023年9月28日 The Deep Lagoon Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis, Christian Sasse Explanation: Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, The bright star forming region is about 5,000 light-years distant. It makes for a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dominated by the telltale red emission of ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with stripped electrons, this deep telescopic view of the Lagoon’s central reaches is about 40 light-years across. The bright hourglass shape near the center of the frame is gas ionized and sculpted by energetic radiation and extreme stellar winds from a massive young star. Tomorrow’s picture: just back…

HH 211: 形成中恒星的喷流

HH 211: 形成中恒星的喷流

ByNASA中文

2023年9月19日 HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Webb; Processing: Tom Ray (DIAS Dublin) Explanation: Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be reduced by expelling jets. This speculation coincides with known Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, young stellar objects seen to emit jets — sometimes in spectacular fashion. Pictured is Herbig-Haro 211, a young star in formation recently imaged by the Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in infrared light and in great detail. Along with the two narrow beams of particles, red shock waves can be seen as the outflows impact…

恒星工厂M17

恒星工厂M17

ByNASA中文

2023年9月8日 Star Factory Messier 17 Image Credit & Copyright: Kim Quick, Terry Hancock, and Tom Masterson (Grand Mesa Observatory) Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1/3 degree wide field of view spans over 30 light-years. The sharp composite, color image highlights faint details of the region’s gas and dust clouds against a backdrop of central Milky Way stars. Stellar winds and energetic light from hot, massive stars formed from M17’s stock of cosmic gas and dust have slowly carved away at the remaining interstellar material, producing the cavernous appearance and undulating shapes. M17 is also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan…

小精灵星云的恒星形成活动

小精灵星云的恒星形成活动

ByNASA中文

2023年8月28日 Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Craig Stocks Explanation: Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590. Formed within the nebula, that cluster’s young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was…

韦伯望远镜的心宿增四星云

韦伯望远镜的心宿增四星云

ByNASA中文

2023年7月13日 Webb’s Rho Ophiuchi Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI), Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) Explanation: A mere 390 light-years away, Sun-like stars and future planetary systems are forming in the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to our fair planet. The James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam peered into the nearby natal chaos to capture this infrared image at an inspiring scale. The spectacular cosmic snapshot was released to celebrate the successful first year of Webb’s exploration of the Universe. The frame spans less than a light-year across the Rho Ophiuchi region and contains about 50 young stars. Brighter stars clearly sport Webb’s characteristic pattern of diffraction spikes. Huge jets of shocked molecular hydrogen blasting from newborn stars are red…

NGC 6559的恒星、尘埃、与星云

NGC 6559的恒星、尘埃、与星云

ByNASA中文

2023年7月10日 Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 6559 Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Telescope Live Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 6559. Visible in the featured image are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass can be as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a bare open cluster of stars….

南冕座的恒星和尘埃

南冕座的恒星和尘埃

ByNASA中文

2023年6月22日 Stars and Dust across Corona Australis Image Credit & Copyright: Alessandro Cipolat Bares Explanation: Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Part of a sprawling molecular cloud complex this star forming region is a mere 500 light-years away. That’s about one third the distance of the more famous stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The 2 degree wide frame would span 15 light-years at the clouds’ estimated distance. Mixed with bright nebulosities the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way and obscure from view embedded stars still in the process of formation. Large dark nebula Bernes 157 is on the…

象鼻与蓬车

象鼻与蓬车

ByNASA中文

2023年6月8日 Elephant’s Trunk and Caravan Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Cannistra (StarryWonders) Explanation: Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Seen on the left the cosmic elephant’s trunk, also known as vdB 142, is over 20 light-years long. This detailed telescopic view features the bright swept-back ridges and pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas that abound in the region. But the dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This…

NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室

NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室

ByNASA中文

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…

仙王座的海马星云

仙王座的海马星云

ByNASA中文

2023年4月20日 The Dark Seahorse in Cepheus Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Herman Explanation: Spanning light-years, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant. It is also listed as Barnard 150 (B150), one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard. Packs of low mass stars are forming within, but their collapsing cores are only visible at long infrared wavelengths. Still, the colorful stars of Cepheus add to this pretty, galactic skyscape. Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space 仙王座的海马星云 影像提供与版权: Jeff Herman 说明:…