Posted on 05/11/2010 7:05:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A vast hole in space has been unexpectedly discovered in a part of the universe thought to be packed with a cloud of dense gas and dust – the latest in a string of cosmic finds by the European Herschel infrared space telescope.
The surprising hole in space has provided astronomers with a new glimpse at the end of the star-forming process.
...
Stars are born in dense clouds of dust and gas, and while jets of gas have been spotted coming from young stars, the process of how a star uses this gas to disperse surrounding debris and emerge from its birth cloud has not been understood.
This latest discovery by Herschel, an infrared space telescope built by the European Space Agency, may be an unexpected step in the star-forming process.
A cloud of bright, reflective gas, known to astronomers as NGC 1999, is located next to a black patch of sky. For most of the 20th century, these black patches were understood to be dense clouds of dust and gas that block light that would normally pass through.
As Herschel's infrared eye looked in the direction of NGC 1999 to study nearby young stars, the cloud continued to look black, even though the telescope's infrared technology is designed to penetrate through such dense cloud material. This meant that either the cloud was immensely dense, or Herschel had happened upon a previously unexplained phenomenon.
Astronomers continued their investigation using ground-based telescopes and found the same results when looking at the patch of gas. This led to the conclusion that the patch looks black not because it is an extremely dense pocket of gas, but because it is truly empty – something had blown a hole through the cloud.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Scientists say the discovery of a vast hole in space may provide a new glimpse at the end of the star-forming process. In this photo, an image obtained from the Herschel Space Observatory shows most the cloud associated with the Rosette nebula, a stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the Monoceros, or Unicorn, constellation. NEWSCOM
BIden’s head?
Bush’s fault or maybe capitalism’s
Now we know where Obama's birth certificate went....
That is amazing.
NGC 1999 is the green tinged cloud towards the top of the image. The dark spot to the right was thought to be a cloud of dense dust and gas until Herschel looked at it. It is in fact a hole that has been blown in the side of NGC 1999 by the jets and winds of gas from the young stellar objects in this region of space. This image combines Herschel PACS 70 and 160 micron data, and 1.6 and 2.2 micron data with the NEWFIRM camera on the Kitt Peak 4 meter.
Herschel finds a hole in space
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMFEAKPO8G_index_0.html
/mark
I don’t see the hole but the pictures are cool.
...Sinkhole that sucks up the whole fookin universe???
...Maybe there’s some hope, all this SH!T will end...
Let me guess.... Obama's ego?
Beats the hell out of me. :-)
Things, from afar, can look a lot calmer than they really are.
/johnny
Holy Cats!
It’s out there somewhere. :-)
I’ll check some other sites..
.../mark...
...I like that. Better than “save for latter”...
The images fell in the hole.
Looks like a hole but can't be it does not fit the model?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a hole is just a hole.
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