Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On March 14, 2011 @ 9:45 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
[1]
Dust Pillar of the Carina Nebula
Credit: NASA [2], ESA [3], and M. Livio [4] and the Hubble 20th Anniversary [5] Team (STScI [6])
Explanation: Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The monster, on the right, is actually an inanimate pillar of gas [7] and dust [8] that measures over a light year [9] in length. The star, not itself visible through the opaque dust [10], is bursting out partly by ejecting energetic beams of particles [11]. Similar epic battles are being waged all over the star-forming Carina Nebula [12]. The stars will win in the end, destroying their pillars of creation [13] over the next 100,000 years, and resulting in a new open cluster [14] of stars. The pink dots around the image are newly formed stars that have already been freed from their birth monster [15]. The above image [16] was released last week in commemoration of the Hubble Space Telescope [17]s 20th year of operation. The technical name for the stellar jets are Herbig-Haro objects [18]. How a star creates Herbig-Haro jet [19]s is an ongoing topic of research [20], but it likely involves an accretion disk [21] swirling around a central star. A second impressive Herbig-Haro jet [22] occurs diagonally near the image center.
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [23]
Article printed from Recorder Online: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com
URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/03/14/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-34/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/carina08_hst_2100.jpg
[2] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[3] ESA: http://spacetelescope.org/
[4] M. Livio: http://www.mariolivio.com/about-the-author/
[5] Hubble 20th Anniversary: http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/hubble_20/
[6] STScI: http://www.stsci.edu/resources/
[7] gas: http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/1.html
[8] dust: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030706.html
[9] light year: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html
[10] opaque dust: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFWY_t3B5cE
[11] energetic beams of particles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_beam_weapon
[12] Carina Nebula: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070425.html
[13] pillars of creation: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070218.html
[14] open cluster: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/open_clusters.html
[15] monster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq9IKsH9BXg
[16] above image: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13/image/a/
[17] Hubble Space Telescope: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010806.html
[18] Herbig-Haro objects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbig-Haro_objects
[19] Herbig-Haro jet: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060203.html
[20] topic of research: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006MNRAS.369.1167L
[21] accretion disk: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap991219.html
[22] Herbig-Haro jet: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap991129.html
[23] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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