NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Dusty NGC 1333

Dusty NGC 1333 [ http://www.noao.edu…n1333.html ] is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by dust. But at longer infrared wavelengths, the interstellar [ http://www-ssg.sr.u…] dust itself glows. Moving your cursor over the picture will match up a visible light view [ http://www.starrywo…] with a false-color infrared image of the region from the Spitzer Space Telescope [ http://www.spitzer.…release.shtml ]. The penetrating infrared view [ http://coolcosmos.ip ac.caltech.edu//main _html/ index.html ] unmasks youthful stars that are otherwise obscured by the dusty [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] clouds that formed them. Also revealed are greenish streaks and splotches that seem to litter the region. The structures trace the glow of cosmic jets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] blasting away from emerging young stellar objects and plowing into the cold cloud material. In all, the chaotic [ http://www.quotedb.…] environment likely resembles one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago. NGC 1333 [ http://www.robgendl…] is a mere 1,000 light-years distant in the constellation Perseus [ http://www.hawastso…].

Visible Image (w/rollover) - Steve Cannistra [ http://www.starrywo…] (StarryWonders [ http://www.starrywo…])
Infrared Image - R. A. Gutermuth (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA [ http://cfa-www.harv…]) et al. [ http://www.spitzer.…release.shtml ] JPL-Caltech [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov…]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Sun

Visible Light

TRACE

Perseus

Spitzer Space Telescope

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap061006