Posted on 04/24/2007 7:45:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dazzlingly detailed image released by NASA scientists on Tuesday shows the chaotic conditions in which stars are born and die -- in this case in a huge nebula in another neighborhood of our Milky Way galaxy.
The image, made from a series of 48 shots taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in spring and summer of 2005, depicts star birth in a new level of detail.
It provides a view spanning a distance of 50 light years across of the Carina Nebula. A nebula is an immense cloud of hot interstellar gas and dust.
This messy and chaotic region includes at least a dozen brilliant stars estimated to be perhaps 50 to 100 times the mass of the sun, astronomers said.
One of them, called Eta Carinae, is in the final stages of its short life span, with two billowing lobes of gas and dust -- a harbinger of its future explosion as a large supernova.
"In short, it gives us a glimpse of the violent conditions that most stars are born in, where they are exposed to the relentless irradiation from their older siblings," astronomer Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, the lead investigator in this work, said by e-mail.
"There are several clues suggesting that our sun and planets were indeed born in a violent region something like this, along with some very hot and massive stars," Smith added. Our solar system was formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
The nebula is about 7,500 light years away from Earth in the constellation Carina in a neighboring spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. The Hubble image depicts a massive region, but it is only a small portion of the whole nebula, which spans 150 to 200 light years across, Smith said.
People can see the nebula with the naked eye from Earth's southern hemisphere, Smith said.
"What you are seeing in the image is hot ionized gas -- in this case, the colors represent oxygen, hydrogen and sulfur at different temperatures," Smith added.
The image was released to coincide with the 17th anniversary of launching Hubble into orbit to provide scientists with clear and deep views of the universe without the Earth's atmosphere getting in the way. It is one of the largest panoramic images ever taken by Hubble.
The future of Hubble is in doubt because the space shuttle program is winding down in the coming years and the telescope needs manned maintenance missions to continue operations.
The image was released by NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, in this undated image, has released on April 24, 2007, one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras, a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of a star's birth and death is taking place. (NASA/Handout/Reuters)
This photo, taken with NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's cameras, shows a portion of the Carina Nebula released Tuesday, April 24, 2007, to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of the Hubble. The image shows a towering 'mountain' of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust which is the site of new star formation. A pencil-like streamer of gas shoots out in both directions from the pillar. The jet is being launched from a newly forming star hidden inside the column. A similar jet appears near the bottom of the image.These stellar jets are a common signature of the birth of a new star. The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula?s first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen.The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. (AP Photo/NASA-ESA)
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades, is seen in a new infrared image made by the Spitzer Space Telescope and released by NASA. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation. The star cluster was born about one hundred million years ago. The new infrared image shows the dust cloud, colored yellow, green and red in this view, where the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts appear in green hues. (AP Photo/NASA)
Image: Carina Nebula Details: Great Clouds
HubbleSite News Release Number: STScI-2007-16
The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/16/
ping
I just love the Hubble photos. They make cool desktops too. Can't believe it's been 17 years since Hubble was put into orbit!
This is .. Eta Carinae
or as I call it..
Our cosmic minds exploding.. at the thought of .. Hillary winning in '08
Eta Carinae is the most luminous star known in our galaxy. It radiates energy at a rate that is 5 million times that of the Sun. Observations indicate that Eta Carinae is an unstable star that is rapidly boiling matter off its surface. Some astronomers think that it could explode as a supernova any time! At a distance of 7,000 light years from Earth, this gigantic explosion would pose no threat to life but it would be quite a show.
Very nice. Much appreciated.
Yup, there’s no GOD... yeah right !!!!!,
Those are pictures painted by THE MASTER !!!!
No wonder so many scientists believe there is a God.
“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” —Isaiah 40:5
Question: are these photos touched up with some kind of special effect process or are the images actually what is seen in the telescope?
It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth — and death — is taking place. This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen during March and July 2005. Color information was added with data taken in December 2001 and March 2003 at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.
We sure as hell got a good value on that piece of hardware.
These are dramatic and beautiful. Awe inspiring.
But, I guess this means that in real life they are drab gray and white?
I don’t know about drab necessarily, there is a fair amount of light and such from the area to make for a pretty good light show if you were close-up, I reckun.
Take ya quite awhile to get there tho.
It's like looking into a time machine.
Hubba Bump
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Yes, there you are!!
Very pretty devolve, thank you!
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