Violent Star-Forming Nebula Caught by Spitzer Telescope
Received:: December 9, 2008 | Category:: ecneics
A brand new photo of the Swan Nebula taken by NASA’s Spitzer
Space Telescope reveals chaotic star-making in action.
In this infrared view, the gooey-looking red stuff is made
up of tiny particles of dust. The sinister green glow represents superhot gas,
and the brilliant white regions are where gas and dust interact.
Located about 6,000 light-years away, the Swan Nebula, or M17,
is a turbulent circus where huge hot stars spew out radiation and fierce winds
of charged particles. The gaseous gusts are thought to carve out a large cavity
in the dust at the center of the picture, where new stars are forming. As the
cavity pushes out, winds from other giant stars nearby push back, forming ripples
of gas called bow shocks, like the ripples that pile up in front of speeding
boats.
"The gas being lit up in these star-forming regions
looks very wispy and fragile, but looks can be deceiving," said researcher
Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, in a press release. "These
bow shocks serve as a reminder that stars aren’t born in quiet nurseries but in
violent regions buffeted by winds more powerful than anything we see on
Earth."
The observations could help point the way toward a better
understanding of how stars like our own sun first came into being, and how they
spawned solar systems.
See Also:
- Spitzer Space Telescope Bags Over a Thousand New Dwarf Galaxies …
- Hubble Snaps New Star Birth Photos During 100000th Orbit
- Distant Galaxy, Possibly One of Universe’s Earliest, Spotted …
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Wisc.
