Thousands of New Stars Emerge in Glowing Nebula

[n2doc]

Thousands of young stars come to the fore in in this beautiful new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The previously unseen stars were born around 1,800 light-years from Earth in a region called the North American Nebula. In images that capture the same range of light that human eyes can see, the nebula looks like the eastern seaboard of the United States, down to the Gulf of Mexico. But most of that light is reflected off clouds of dust that hide infant stars. Only about 200 young stars were known before.

This image breaks through the clouds to find more than 2,000 new objects that may be young stars. (More data processing will determine their nature.) Because Spitzer is sensitive to infrared wavelengths that can sense heat, it can see the glow of the dusty, buried stars.

“One of the things that makes me so excited about this image is how different it is from the visible image, and how much more we can see in the infrared than in the visible,” said Spitzer astronomer Luisa Rebull in a press release. “The Spitzer image reveals a wealth of detail about the dust and the young stars here.” A paper detailing the observations has been accepted in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.

more
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/north-american-nebula/

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/news/1249-ssc2011-03-New-View-of-Family-Life-in-the-North-American-Nebula

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. That is so beautiful.

and reassuring.Knowing that we are ALL "star stuff".

[AlecBGreen]

2. +1