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RCW 49
RCW 49, also known as NGC 3247, is a H II regionSIMBADRCW 49(accessed 4 April 2012) nebula located 13,700 light years away. Other designations for the RCW 49 region include NGC 3247 and G29 and it is commonly known as the Whirling Dervish Nebula. It is a dusty stellar nursery that contains more than 2,200 stars and is about 300-400 light years across. RCW 49 is recognized as among the brightest and most massive HII regions. In 2004, a 2003 image by the Spitzer Space Telescope was released showing the nebula in infrared wavelengths. This included an image showing the infrared colors mapped to visible light colors: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red). It was noted as being almost 14 thousand light years from Earth, and the infrared camera could detect the stars obscured by dust clouds. It was estimated at least 200 of the stars in the nebula have dust disks. The results of observations of the Spitzer Telescope, including the IRAC c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spitzer Space Telescope
The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, following IRAS (1983) and ISO (1995–1998). It was the first spacecraft to use an Earth-trailing orbit, later used by the Kepler planet-finder. The planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009. Without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very low temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments were no longer usable. However, the two shortest-wavelength modules of the IRAC camera continued to operate with the same sensitivity as before the helium was exhausted, and continued to be used into early 2020 in the Spitzer Warm Mission. During the warm mission, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gum Catalog
The Gum catalog is an astronomical catalog of 84 emission nebulae in the southern sky. It was made by the Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960) at Mount Stromlo Observatory using wide field photography. Gum published his findings in 1955 in a study entitled ''A study of diffuse southern H-alpha nebulae'' which presented a catalog of 84 nebulae or nebular complexes. Similar catalogs include the Sharpless catalog and the RCW catalog, and many of the Gum objects are repeated in these other catalogs. However, the RCW and Gum catalogs were mainly of the southern hemisphere (Mount Stromlo is in the southern hemisphere) The Gum Nebula is named for Gum, who discovered it as Gum 12; it is an emission nebula that can be found in the southern constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate obj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carina Nebula
The Carina Nebula or Eta Carinae Nebula (catalogued as NGC 3372; also known as the Great Carina Nebula) is a large, complex area of bright and dark nebulosity in the constellation Carina, located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The nebula is approximately from Earth. The nebula has within its boundaries the large Carina OB1 association and several related open clusters, including numerous O-type stars and several Wolf–Rayet stars. encompasses the star clusters and . is one of the youngest known star clusters at half a million years old. is the home of , currently the most luminous star known in our Milky Way galaxy, together with the less luminous but more massive and famous Eta Carinae star system and the O2 supergiant . , , , , and are also considered members of the association. is the oldest and furthest from , indicating sequential and ongoing star formation. The nebula is one of the largest diffuse nebulae in our skies. Although it i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow Shock
In astrophysics, a bow shock occurs when the magnetosphere of an astrophysical object interacts with the nearby flowing ambient plasma such as the solar wind. For Earth and other magnetized planets, it is the boundary at which the speed of the stellar wind abruptly drops as a result of its approach to the magnetopause. For stars, this boundary is typically the edge of the astrosphere, where the stellar wind meets the interstellar medium. Description The defining criterion of a shock wave is that the bulk velocity of the plasma drops from " supersonic" to "subsonic", where the speed of sound cs is defined by c_s^2 = \gamma p/ \rho where \gamma is the ratio of specific heats, p is the pressure, and \rho is the density of the plasma. A common complication in astrophysics is the presence of a magnetic field. For instance, the charged particles making up the solar wind follow spiral paths along magnetic field lines. The velocity of each particle as it gyrates around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow Shocks In Astrophysics
In astrophysics, a bow shock occurs when the magnetosphere of an astrophysical object interacts with the nearby flowing ambient plasma such as the solar wind. For Earth and other magnetized planets, it is the boundary at which the speed of the stellar wind abruptly drops as a result of its approach to the magnetopause. For stars, this boundary is typically the edge of the astrosphere, where the stellar wind meets the interstellar medium. Description The defining criterion of a shock wave is that the bulk velocity of the plasma drops from "supersonic" to "subsonic", where the speed of sound cs is defined by c_s^2 = \gamma p/ \rho where \gamma is the ratio of specific heats, p is the pressure, and \rho is the density of the plasma. A common complication in astrophysics is the presence of a magnetic field. For instance, the charged particles making up the solar wind follow spiral paths along magnetic field lines. The velocity of each particle as it gyrates around a fiel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star-forming Region
Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in The "medium" is present further soon.-->interstellar space, sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "-forming regions", and form s. As a branch of , star formation includes the study of the |
Infrared Array Camera
The Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) was an infrared camera system on the ''Spitzer Space Telescope'' which operated in the mid-infrared spectrum. It was composed of four detectors that operated simultaneously at different wavelengths; all four were in use until 2009 May 15 when the ''Spitzer'' cryostat ran out of liquid helium. After then, the spacecraft operated in a warm extended mission, in which two of the four detectors remained functional, until the ''Spitzer'' mission was terminated on 2020 January 30. During its primary mission, IRAC was able to simultaneously operate in four wavelengths: 3.6 μm, 4.5 μm, 5.8 μm, and 8.0 μm. Each infrared detector had dimensions of 256×256 pixels—a significant improvement over previous spaceborne infrared telescopes—and each image taken covered 5.12 square arcminutes of sky with each pixel covering 1.2 arcseconds. The detectors operating at 3.6 μm and 4.5 μm were constructed with indium antimonide (In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around 1 millimeter (300 GHz) to the nominal red edge of the visible spectrum, around 700 nanometers (430 THz). Longer IR wavelengths (30 μm-100 μm) are sometimes included as part of the terahertz radiation range. Almost all black-body radiation from objects near room temperature is at infrared wavelengths. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, IR propagates energy and momentum, exerts radiation pressure, and has properties corresponding to both those of a wave and of a particle, the photon. It was long known that fires emit invisible heat; in 1681 the pioneering experimenter Edme Mariotte showed that glass, though transparent to sunlight, obstructed radiant heat. In 1800 the astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molecular Cloud
A molecular cloud, sometimes called a stellar nursery (if star formation is occurring within), is a type of interstellar cloud, the density and size of which permit absorption nebulae, the formation of molecules (most commonly molecular hydrogen, H2), and the formation of H II regions. This is in contrast to other areas of the interstellar medium that contain predominantly ionized gas. Molecular hydrogen is difficult to detect by infrared and radio observations, so the molecule most often used to determine the presence of H2 is carbon monoxide (CO). The ratio between CO luminosity and H2 mass is thought to be constant, although there are reasons to doubt this assumption in observations of some other galaxies. Within molecular clouds are regions with higher density, where much dust and many gas cores reside, called clumps. These clumps are the beginning of star formation if gravitational forces are sufficient to cause the dust and gas to collapse. History The form of molecular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New General Catalogue
The ''New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars'' (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, including galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae. Dreyer published two supplements to the NGC in 1895 and 1908, known as the ''Index Catalogues'' (abbreviated IC), describing a further 5,386 astronomical objects. Thousands of these objects are best known by their NGC or IC numbers, which remain in widespread use. The NGC expanded and consolidated the cataloguing work of William and Caroline Herschel, and John Herschel's ''General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars''. Objects south of the celestial equator are catalogued somewhat less thoroughly, but many were included based on observation by John Herschel or James Dunlop. The NGC contained multiple errors, but attempts to eliminate them were made by the ''Revised New General Catalogue'' (RNGC) by Jack W. Sulent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
