. Space Travel News .




.
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Making a Spectacle of Star Formation in Orion
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 01, 2011

Best known as Messier 78, the two round greenish nebulae are actually cavities carved out of the surrounding dark dust clouds. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision, showing stellar infants that are lost behind dark clouds when viewed in visible light.

Best known as Messier 78, the two round greenish nebulae are actually cavities carved out of the surrounding dark dust clouds. The extended dust is mostly dark, even to Spitzer's view, but the edges show up in mid-wavelength infrared light as glowing, red frames surrounding the bright interiors.

Messier 78 is easily seen in small telescopes in the constellation of Orion, just to the northeast of Orion's belt, but looks strikingly different, with dominant, dark swaths of dust. Spitzer's infrared eyes penetrate this dust, revealing the glowing interior of the nebulae.

The light from young, newborn stars are starting to carve out cavities within the dust, and eventually, this will become a larger nebula like the "green ring" imaged by Spitzer.

A string of baby stars that have yet to burn their way through their natal shells can be seen as red pinpoints on the outside of the nebula. Eventually these will blossom into their own glowing balls, turning this two-eyed eyeglass into a many-eyed monster of a nebula.

This is a three-color composite that shows infrared observations from two Spitzer instruments. Blue represents 3.6- and 4.5-micron light, and green shows light of 5.8 and 8 microns, both captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Red is 24-micron light detected by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer. Pasadena, Calif.




Related Links
Spitzer Space Telescope
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It

.
Get Our Free Newsletters Via Email
...
Buy Advertising Editorial Enquiries






. Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle



STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Most Distant Quasar Found
Paris, France (SPX) Jun 30, 2011
A team of European astronomers has used ESO's Very Large Telescope and a host of other telescopes to discover and study the most distant quasar found to date. This brilliant beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, is by far the brightest object yet discovered in the early Universe. The results will appear in the 30 June 2011 issue of the journal Nature. ... read more


STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Space X Dragon Spacecraft Returns To Florida

Arianespace Launch Postponed At Least 20 Days

Minotaur Rocket Launch from NASA Wallops Re-Scheduled

Parallel Ariane 5 launch campaigns keep up Arianespace's 2011 mission pace

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Scientists uncover evidence of a wet Martian past in desert

NASA Research Offers New Prospect Of Water On Mars

New Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action

Islands of Life - Part One

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Marshall Center's Bassler Leads NASA Robotic Lander Work

NASA puts space probe into lunar orbit

ARTEMIS Spacecraft Prepare for Lunar Orbit

LRO Showing Us the Moon as Never Before

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Clocking The Spin of Neptune

Scientist accurately gauges Neptune's spin

Williams and MIT Astronomers Observe Pluto and its Moons

SOFIA Successfully Observes Challenging Pluto Occultation

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Microlensing Finds a Rocky Planet

A golden age of exoplanet discovery

CoRoT's new detections highlight diversity of exoplanets

Rage Against the Dying of the Light

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
PSLV-C17 to Launch GSAT-12 on July 15, 2011

Astrium signs up for Next Gen Launcher High Thrust Engine

NASA Will Compete Space Launch System (SLS) Boosters

Europe to build space re-entry vehicle

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
China to launch new communication satellite

China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2 goes to outer space

Building harmonious outer space to achieve inclusive development

China's Fengyun-3B satellite goes into official operation

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Richard Binzel on near-Earth asteroids

Study rates countries' risk from asteroid

Dawn Journal - June 2011

New comet could put on 2013 show


Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily Express :: SpaceWar Express :: TerraDaily Express :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News
.

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2011 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement