NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Mountains of Creation

This fantastic skyscape [ http://www.spitzer.…ssc2005-23/index.sht ml ] lies at the eastern edge of giant stellar nursery W5, about 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia [ http://www.astropix…]. An infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope [ http://www.spitzer.…], it features interstellar clouds of cold gas and dust sculpted by winds and radiation from a hot, massive star outside the picture (just above and to the right). Still swaddled within the cosmic clouds, newborn stars are revealed [ http://www.spitzer.…ssc2005-23a.shtml ] by Spitzer's penetrating gaze, their formation also triggered [ http://arxiv.org/ab…] by the massive star. Fittingly dubbed "Mountains of Creation", these interstellar [ http://www-ssg.sr.u…] clouds are about 10 times the size of the analogous Pillars of Creation [ http://hubblesite.o…1995/44/image/a ] in M16, made famous in a 1995 Hubble Space Telescope view. W5 is also known as IC 1848 and together with IC 1805 it is part of a complex [ http://arxiv.org/ab…] region popularly dubbed the Heart and Soul Nebulae [ http://www.astropix…]. The Spitzer image spans about 70 light-years at the distance of W5.

Lori Allen (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA [ http://cfa-www.harv…]) et al. [ http://www.spitzer.…moreinfo.shtml ], JPL-Caltech [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov…]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Cassiopeia

W5

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap071215