Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On November 21, 2011 @ 7:41 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
The image highlights a part of W5 spanning about 2,000 light years that is rich in star forming pillars. W5 lies about 6,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia.
[1]
Image Credit & Copyright: Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA [2]) et al. [3], JPL-Caltech [4], NASA [5]
Explanation: How do stars form? A study of star forming region W5 [6] by the sun-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope [7] provides clear clues by recording that massive stars near the center of empty cavities are older than stars near the edges. A likely reason for this is that the older stars in the center are actually triggering [8] the formation of the younger edge stars. The triggered star formation [9] occurs when hot outflowing gas compresses cooler gas into knots dense [10] enough to gravitationally contract into stars. Spectacular pillars [11], left slowly evaporating from the hot outflowing gas, provide further visual clues [12]. In the above [13] scientifically-colored infrared [14] image, red indicates heated dust [15], while white and green indicate particularly dense gas clouds. W5 [16] is also known as IC 1848 [17], and together with IC 1805 [18] forms a complex region of star formation popularly dubbed the Heart [19] and Soul [20] Nebulas. The above image [13] highlights a part of W5 spanning about 2,000 light years [21] that is rich in star forming pillar [22]s. W5 lies about 6,500 light years away toward the constellation [23] ofCassiopeia [24].
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URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/11/21/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-91/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/w5_spitzer_5569.jpg
[2] Harvard-Smithsonian CfA: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/
[3] et al.: http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3284
[4] JPL-Caltech: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
[5] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[6] W5: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20080822.html
[7] Spitzer Space Telescope: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/mission/32-The-Mission
[8] triggering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W13ZYepDBvo
[9] star formation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_formation
[10] knots dense: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080528.html
[11] Spectacular pillars: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070218.html
[12] visual clues: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Escher%27s_Relativity.jpg
[13] above: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1953-ssc2008-15a1-W5-Star-Formation-Region
[14] infrared: http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/07_infraredwaves.html
[15] dust: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030706.html
[16] W5: http://ads.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/abs/2008ApJ...688.1142K
[17] IC 1848: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Nebula
[18] together with IC 1805: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080914.html
[19] Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h45UrpBsCKI
[20] Soul: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_music
[21] light years: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html
[22] star forming pillar: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070430.html
[23] constellation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation
[24] Cassiopeia: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/Cassiopeia.html
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