Posted on 12/26/2005 12:44:46 PM PST by NormsRevenge
TUCSON, Ariz. - Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered a perfectly decorated Christmas tree 2,500 light years from earth. Scientists at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory said the remarkable star cluster gives them the first glimpse of newborn stars acting just as predicted - patterned geometrically and spaced according to density, temperature and gravity.
"If you look at the very young stars in the cluster and the spacing between them, it isn't random spacing," said Erick T. Young, an astronomer at the Steward Observatory. "They're all about the same distance apart."
The stars are less than 100,000 years old and located in a nebula in the Monoceros, or Unicorn, constellation. The constellation is visible in the winter sky to the east of Orion.
The images captured by the space telescope reinforce the basic theory that the gravity and density of the dust and gas cloud are determining factors in the formation of stars.
"This is the first really good demonstration that the theory works on something like a star cluster," Young said.
The observations reinforce British astronomer James Jeans' early 1900s gravitational collapse theory and could yield clues to the formation of the solar system.
"We believe this process of forming stars in a cluster was exactly the same thing that happened with our very own sun 4 1/2 billion years ago," Young said. "It tells us a lot about the history of our own solar system."
The "Christmas Tree Cluster" is about 1 to 3 million years old and too young for planets to have formed.
The observations were made a year ago but have just been published in the Astronomical Journal after a year of research.
The scientists used images collected with a University of Arizona-built infrared camera and another device on the NASA craft developed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to construct the images.
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Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center of the image. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/P.S. Teixeira)
This is an image originally released on Dec. 22, 2005 by NASA/JPL showing the first glimpse of newborn stars clustered geometrically in a newly formed nebula - a cloud of gas and dust where stars are formed. Scientists at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory said the stars are less than 100,000 years old. The image was made using information from two telescopes aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/P.S. Teixeira - Center for Astrophysics)
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/mediaimages/sig/sig05-028.shtml
Stellar Snowflake Cluster
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, created in joint effort between Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) instruments.
The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center of the combined IRAC-MIPS image (left panel). The stars appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the "Snowflake Cluster."
Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or "protostars." At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to "crawl" away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.
While most of the visible-light stars that give the Christmas Tree Cluster its name and triangular shape do not shine brightly in Spitzer's infrared eyes, all of the stars forming from this dusty cloud are considered part of the cluster.
Like a dusty cosmic finger pointing up to the newborn clusters, Spitzer also illuminates the optically dark and dense Cone Nebula, the tip of which can be seen towards the bottom left corner of each image.
The combined IRAC-MIPS image shows the presence of organic molecules mixed with dust as wisps of green, which have been illuminated by nearby star formation. The larger yellowish dots neighboring the baby red stars in the Snowflake Cluster are massive stellar infants forming from the same cloud. The blue dots sprinkled across the image represent older Milky Way stars at various distances along this line of sight. The image is a five-channel, false-color composite, showing emission from wavelengths of 3.6 and 4.5 microns (blue), 5.8 microns (cyan), 8 microns (green), and 24 microns (red).
IRAC's near and mid-infrared eyes (top right) show that the nebula is still actively forming stars. The wisps of red (represented as green in the IRAC-MIPS image) are organic molecules mixed with dust, which has been illuminated by nearby star formation. The IRAC picture is a four-channel, false-color composite, showing emission from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8.0 microns (red).
MIPS' far-infrared eyes (bottom right) the colder dust of the nebula and unwraps the youngest stellar babies from their dusty covering. This is a false-color image showing emission at 24 microns (red).
My home planet revealed.
bttt
BTTT
Is that a Romulan warship hiding in that nebula?
And shouldn't that be called a festive seasonal holiday tree?
Cute! It does look fairly much like an upside down Christmas tree with a bright ornament on top
No, no. It's a "Wishing Tree," or so they were calling it at Lowe's until recently.
Merry Christmas, God...
Ninth Circuit decrees Astral Christmas Tree MUST BE taken down.
The nebula looks good with the stellar ornaments and varicolored dust and gas clouds, but if you were there as a doctoral student you might think your graduate committee pleasant by comparison.
Beautiful!
Christmas tree??? I see an angel... What are all those people doing on my front lawn???
Quite awesome, but I don't see the tree.
Is it the cone-shaped shadow at the bottom of the picture?
Astronomers Get First Glimpse of New Stars (Christmas Tree Cluster)
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
(Happy Holiday Tree Cluster)
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