FW: [Vortex101] Cosmic Nebulas Dazzle in New Space Telescope Photos

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http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/wise-telescope-new-photos-101226.html

Cosmic

Nebulas Dazzle in New Space Telescope Photos

By SPACE.com Staff

posted: 26 December 2010

08:21 am ET

NASA's WISE infrared telescope, which recently celebrated the one-year

anniversary of its launch into space, has returned some stunning photos lately.

The new pictures from WISE short for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer,

which launched on Dec. 14, 2009  are dramatic, colorful images of

interstellar clouds of gas and dust called nebulas.

The first photo depicts a structure known as the Flaming Star Nebula, which is

about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Auriga. At the nebula's heart

is the star AE Aurigae, which appears to be ablaze, hence the name.

AE Aurigae is a so-called runaway star, researchers said. It was likely born in

the Trapezium Cluster, in the constellation Orion, but was booted out by a

collision with a binary star system about 2.5 million years ago.

The enhanced colors seen in the image represent specific wavelengths of

infrared light, which unaided human eyes cannot see. Hot stars scattered

throughout the nebula show up as blue and cyan. Glowing gas appears green,

while heated-up dust is primarily red, researchers said.

This WISE photo shows the Jellyfish Nebula  also known as IC 443  which

is about 5,000 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Gemini. The

jellyfish shape is a shell surrounding the remnants of a massive star that

exploded 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, researchers said.

This huge supernova blast sent out shock waves that heated up surrounding gas

and dust, forming the shell, researchers said. The different colors  again,

representations of various infrared wavelengths  result from differences in

the energy intensity of the shock wave, and light emissions by disparate

materials.

This mosaic image features three nebulas that are part of the giant Orion

Molecular Cloud, about 1,500 light-years from Earth. The image covers an area

of the sky about three times as high and wide as the full moon, researchers

said.

The Flame Nebula is the huge, luminous structure in the center of the image.

What makes it shine so brightly is Alnitak, the blue star to the right of the

central cloud. The Horsehead Nebula is also visible, as a faint bump on the

lower-right side of the vertical dust ridge, researchers said.

The third nebula, called NGC 2023, can be seen as a bright circle in the lower

half of the image. In the image, blue represents light emitted at 3.4-micron

wavelengths, mainly from hot stars. Relatively cooler objects, such as the dust

of the nebulas, appear green and red. Green represents 4.6-micron light and red

represents 12-micron light, researchers said.

This final photo shows the nebula IC 2944, also known as the Lambda Centauri,

or Running Chicken nebula. It's about 5,800 light-years from Earth, in the

constellation Centaurus.

The nebula is a stellar nursery, home to a new cluster of stars born from the

cloud about 8 million years ago, researchers said. In the picture, blue and

cyan represent infrared light with wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is

mostly light from stars. Green and red represent wavelengths of 12 and 22

microns, which is mostly light from warm dust; red signals temperatures lower

than green.

The large, green ring-like structure near the middle of the image is about 77

light-years across, researchers said. It's formed by the combined winds of the

young stars blowing back the material from which they were born.

Since its launch, the WISE telescope has catalogued hundreds of millions of asteroids,

stars and galaxies.

In late September, after covering the sky about 1 1/2 times, WISE ran out of

the coolant needed to chill its infrared detectors.

The spacecraft is still scanning the heavens with two of its four detectors,

operating under an extended mission called NEOWISE. NEOWISE focuses primarily

on comets and asteroids, including near-Earth objects  bodies whose orbits

pass relatively close to Earth's orbit around the sun.