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Light & Shadow in the Carina Nebula
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Caption:
Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure
within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this Hubble
image, which is dominated by a large, approximately circular
feature that contains both bright filaments of hot, fluorescing
gas and dark silhouetted clouds of cold molecules and dust,
all of which are in rapid, chaotic motion. The high resolution
of the Hubble images reveals the relative three-dimensional
locations of many of these features, as well as showing numerous
small dark globules that may be in the process of collapsing
to form new stars.
A striking large, sharp-edged dust cloud is located near the
bottom left edge of the image just, outside the ring. This large
dark cloud may eventually evaporate, or if there are sufficiently
dense condensations within it, give birth to small star clusters.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
STScI-2000-06
Sagittarius Star Cloud
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Caption:
Most of our view of our own Milky Way galaxy is obscured by
dust. Here Hubble peers into the Sagittarius Star Cloud (SGR-I),
a narrow, dust-free region in the direction of the Galactic
core. It is a spectacular glimpse of a treasure chest full of
stars. Some of these gems are among the oldest inhabitants of
our galaxy. By studying the older stars that pack our Milky
Way’s hub we can learn more about the evolution of our
galaxy.
Many of the brighter stars here show vivid colors. A star’s
color reveals its temperature, one of its most “vital
statistics.” Knowing a star’s temperature, and the
power of the star’s radiation, one can draw conclusions
about its age and mass. Most blue stars are young and hot, up
to 10 times hotter than our Sun. They consume their fuel much
faster and live shorter lives than our Sun.
Red stars come
in two flavors: small stars and red giants. Smaller red stars
generally have temperatures about half that
of our Sun. They consume their fuel slowly and thus live the
longest. Red giant stars are near the end of their lives, having
exhausted their fuel. Although many red giant stars may once
have been ordinary stars like our Sun, they swell up in size
as they die, becoming much cooler and much more luminous than
they were for most of their stellar lives.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide
Field Planetary Camera 2
Photo Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage
Team (STScI/AURA)
STScI-1998-28
Eagle Nebula Pillars
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Caption:
This striking picture resolves the tips of finger-like
features protruding from monstrous pillars of cold gas and
dust in the
Eagle Nebula
(M16). The pillars protrude from the wall of
a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen, like stalagmites rising
above the floor of a cavern. Inside the gaseous towers, which
are light-years long, the interstellar gas is dense enough
to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars that
continue to grow as they accumulate more and more mass from
their surroundings.
Hubble gives a clear look at what happens
as a torrent of ultraviolet light from nearby young, hot stars
heats the gas along the surface of the pillars, “boiling
it away” into interstellar space. The image shows “photoevaporating” gas
as ghostly streamers flowing away from the columns. But not
all of the gas boils off at the same rate. Denser concentrations
of gas and dust are left behind after the gas around them is
gone.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University),
and NASA
STScI-1995-44
Cone Nebula
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Caption:
Monstrous pillars of cold gas are common in large regions of star birth. Astronomers
believe that these pillars are incubators for developing stars. This Hubble
close-up shows the top 2.5 light-years of the Cone Nebula. The entire nebula
is 7 light-years long and resides 2,500 light-years away in the constellation
Monoceros.
Radiation from hot, young stars (located beyond the top of
the image) has slowly eroded the nebula over millions of years.
Ultraviolet light heats the edges of the dark cloud, releasing
gas into surrounding space. There, more ultraviolet radiation
makes the hydrogen gas glow, producing the red halo of light
seen around the pillar. Background stars can be seen peeking
through the evaporating tendrils of gas, while the turbulent
base is pockmarked with stars whose light has been filtered
red by dust.
Over time, only the densest regions of the Cone will be left.
Inside these regions, stars and planets may form.
Hubble Space Telescope • Advanced Camera for Surveys
Photo Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (USCS/LO),
M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team,
and ESA
STScI-2002-11
Stellar Life Cycles in NGC 3603
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Caption:
In a stunning picture of the giant galactic nebula NGC 3603, Hubble’s
crisp resolution captures various stages of the life cycle of stars in one
single view. This picture illustrates the entire stellar life cycle, starting
with Bok globules and giant gaseous pillars (evidence of embryonic stars),
followed by circumstellar disks around young stars (embedded protostars), and
progressing to aging, massive stars in a young starburst cluster. The blue
super-giant with its ring and bipolar outflow (upper right of center) marks
the end of the life cycle. Labeled “Doomsday Star,” it is destined
to explode in the near future.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel
(Univ. Washington), You-Hua Chu (Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign),
and NASA
STScI-1999-20
Globular Cluster M80
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Caption:
This ancient star cluster is one of the oldest known objects in the universe.
Its hundreds of thousands of stars, all born simultaneously some 12 to 15
billion years ago, are held together by their mutual gravitational attraction.
The prominent reddish members of the cluster are red giant stars approaching
the end of their lives.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
STScI-1999-26
Star Cluster – Hodge 301
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Caption:
In a galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbor to
our own Milky Way galaxy, we find the cluster of brilliant,
massive stars seen in the corner of this Hubble image. Some
of the stars in this cluster have already lived out their lives
and exploded as supernovae. They are blasting material into
the surrounding region at speeds of almost 200 miles per second.
The material plows into the surrounding Tarantula Nebula, shocking
and compressing the nebula’s gas into a multitude of sheets
and filaments.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
STScI-1999-12
Ring Nebula M57
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Caption:
The most famous of all planetary nebulae is M57, the
Ring Nebula. Hubble has captured the sharpest view yet of this
cloud,
a “tunnel” of gas cast off by a dying star thousands
of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material
embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula, and the dying
central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula
is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2,000
light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation
Lyra. The colors are approximately true and represent three
different chemical elements: helium (blue), oxygen (green),
and nitrogen (red).
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field
Planetary Camera 2
Photo Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage
Team (STScI/AURA)
STScI-1999-01
Omega Nebula M17
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Caption:
This is the center of a hotbed of newly born stars wrapped in colorful blankets
of glowing gas and cradled in an enormous cold, dark hydrogen cloud. The
region shown in this Hubble view is about 3,500 times wider than our solar
system. The nebula resides 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
The nebula is illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from young,
massive stars, each about six times hotter and 30 times more
massive than the Sun. Powerful radiation from these stars evaporates
and erodes the dense cloud of cold gas within which the stars
formed. The blistered walls of the hollow cloud shine primarily
in the blue, green, and red light emitted by excited atoms
of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.
As the infant stars evaporate the surrounding cloud, they
expose dense pockets of gas that may contain developing stars.
One isolated pocket is seen at the center of the brightest
region of the nebula and is about 10 times larger than our
solar system.
Hubble Space Telescope • Advanced Camera for Surveys
Photo Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (USCS/LO),
M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team,
and ESA
STScI-2002-11
Planetary Nebula Mz3
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Caption:
As solar-mass stars approach the end of their lives they become
unstable and eject their outer layers into space, forming expanding
shells of gas. This cloud has a striking, symmetrical form.
One possible reason is that the central star has a closely orbiting
companion that exerts strong gravitational tidal forces, shaping
the outflowing gas. Another possibility is that, as the dying
star spins, its strong magnetic fields are wound up into complex
shapes. Charged winds, flowing out from the star along these
twisted field lines, would be made visible by ultraviolet light
from the hot central star, or by colliding at high speed with
slower-moving gas.
Hubble Space Telescope • Wide Field Planetary Camera
2
Photo Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgement: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Lab) and B. Balick (University of
Washington)
STScI-2001-05
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