|
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Crab Nebula Supernova Remnan
…
| Title |
Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant (IRAC-MIPS Image) |
| Description |
The Crab Nebula is the shattered remnant of a massive star that ended its life in a massive supernova explosion. Nearly a thousand years old, the supernova was noted in the constellation of Taurus by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054 AD. This view of the supernova remnant obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope shows the infrared view of this complex object. The blue region traces the cloud of energetic electrons trapped within the star's magnetic field, emitting so-called "synchrotron" radiation. The yellow-red features follow the well-known filamentary structures that permeate this nebula. Though they are known to contain hot gasses, their exact nature is still a mystery that astronomers are examining. The energetic cloud of electrons are driven by a rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar, at its core. The nebula is about 6,500 light-years away from the Earth, and is 5 light-years across. This false-color image presents images from Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) at 3.6 (blue), 8.0 (green), 24 (red) microns. |
|
Crab Nebula Supernova Remnan
…
| Title |
Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant (IRAC Image) |
| Description |
The Crab Nebula is the shattered remnant of a massive star that ended its life in a massive supernova explosion. Nearly a thousand years old, the supernova was noted in the constellation of Taurus by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054 AD. This view of the supernova remnant obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope shows the infrared view of this complex object. The blue-white region traces the cloud of energetic electrons trapped within the star's magnetic field, emitting so-called "synchrotron" radiation. The red features follow the well-known filamentary structures that permeate this nebula. Though they are known to contain hot gasses, their exact nature is still a mystery that astronomers are examining. The energetic cloud of electrons are driven by a rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar, at its core. The nebula is about 6,500 light-years away from the Earth, and is 5 light-years across. This false-color image presents images from Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), and 8.0 (red) microns. |
|
The Spirit of Halloween Live
…
| Title |
The Spirit of Halloween Lives On as a Dead Star Creates Celestial Havoc |
| Description |
According to the folklore of the Celts and other ancient cultures, Halloween marked the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice on the astronomical calendar, a spooky night when spirits of the dead spread havoc upon their return to Earth. Nowadays, Halloween is primarily a time for children to dress in costume and demand treats, but the original spirit of Halloween lives on in the sky in the guise of the Crab Nebula. A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a superdense neutron star left behind by the stellar death is spewing out a blizzard of extremely high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula. This composite image uses data from three of NASA's Great Observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in light blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical images are in green and dark blue, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in red. The size of the X-ray image is smaller than the others because ultrahigh-energy X-ray emitting electrons radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower-energy electrons emitting optical and infrared light. The neutron star, which has the mass equivalent to the sun crammed into a rapidly spinning ball of neutrons twelve miles across, is the bright white dot in the center of the image. |
|
The Seven Sisters Pose for S
…
| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. |
|
The Seven Sisters Pose for S
…
| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. |
|
Pink Pleiades
| Title |
Pink Pleiades |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue. |
|
Pink Pleiades
| Title |
Pink Pleiades |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue. |
|
Star-Crossed Rings
| Description |
Star-Crossed Rings |
| Full Description |
This image is a false-color ultraviolet view of Saturn's B ring (center) and A ring (right), separated by a large gap known as the Cassini Division. It shows a bright horizontal streak, created by a series of time lapse images involving a star named 26 Taurus. The image was made over a nine-hour period as the star drifted behind the rings. The opacity of the outer A ring is most pronounced on its inner edge, indicating more ring debris is present there. The Encke Gap, much smaller than the Cassini Division, is visible near the outer edge of the A ring. The B ring is significantly more opaque than the A ring, indicating a greater density of ring material when imaged from above. The sky behind the rings glows red in the ultraviolet wavelengths from the hydrogen gas that fills the solar system. The images were processed from data taken by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph aboard the Cassini spacecraft in May 2005. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was built at, and the team is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team home page is at http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado |
| Date |
April 6, 2006 |
|
Crab Nebula
| Name |
Crab Nebula |
| Category |
Supernovas & Supernova Remnants, Neutron Stars/X-ray Binaries |
| Release Date |
September 28, 1999 |
|
Supernova SN1999em:
| Name |
Supernova SN1999em: |
| Category |
Supernovas & Supernova Remnants |
| Release Date |
December 14, 1999 |
|
Crab Nebula Movie: Space Mov
…
| Name |
Crab Nebula Movie: Space Movie Reveals Shocking Secrets of the Crab Pulsar |
| Category |
Supernovas & Supernova Remnants |
| Release Date |
September 19, 2002 |
|
V471 Tauri: Star Shows It Ha
…
| Name |
V471 Tauri: Star Shows It Has the Right Stuff |
| Category |
Normal Stars & White Dwarf Stars |
| Release Date |
January 30, 2004 |
|
Crab Nebula: The Spirit of H
…
| Name |
Crab Nebula: The Spirit of Halloween Lives on as a Dead Star Creates Celestial Havoc |
| Category |
Supernovas & Supernova Remnants, Neutron Stars/X-ray Binaries |
| Release Date |
October 24, 2006 |
|
Peering into the Heart of th
…
| Title |
Peering into the Heart of the Crab Nebula |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Ghostly Reflections in the P
…
| Title |
Ghostly Reflections in the Pleiades |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Intergalactic 'Pipeline' Fun
…
| Title |
Intergalactic 'Pipeline' Funnels Matter Between Colliding Galaxies |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Peering into the Heart of th
…
| Title |
Peering into the Heart of the Crab Nebula |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Peering into the Heart of th
…
| Title |
Peering into the Heart of the Crab Nebula |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Movies from Hubble Show the
…
| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
Space Movie Reveals Shocking
…
| Title |
Space Movie Reveals Shocking Secrets of the Crab Pulsar |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Space Movie Reveals Shocking
…
| Title |
Space Movie Reveals Shocking Secrets of the Crab Pulsar |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Space Movie Reveals Shocking
…
| Title |
Space Movie Reveals Shocking Secrets of the Crab Pulsar |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
NASA's Hubble Looks for Poss
…
| Title |
NASA's Hubble Looks for Possible Moon Resources |
|
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the
…
| Title |
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the Crab Nebula |
|
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the
…
| Title |
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the Crab Nebula |
|
Hubble Refines Distance to P
…
| Title |
Hubble Refines Distance to Pleiades Star Cluster |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
Hubble Refines Distance to P
…
| Title |
Hubble Refines Distance to Pleiades Star Cluster |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. Back to top [ #top ] |
|
In the Heart of the Crab
| Title |
In the Heart of the Crab |
| Explanation |
The supernova [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/supernovae.html ] explosion that formed the Crab Nebula [ http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m001.html ] was first seen [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/96/22/crabhist.html ] on the year 1054. Last week, astronomers released [ http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/2000june1/crab.html ] a new image of the still-evolving center of the explosion. The above representative-color photograph [ http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/2000june1/displaycrab.html ] was taken in colors emitted by specific elements [ http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/about.html#history ] including hydrogen [ http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/h.html ] (orange), nitrogen [ http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/7.html ] (red), sulfur [ http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/16.html ] (pink), and oxygen [ http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/8.html ] (green), with the result appearing oddly similar to a Jackson Pollock [ http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/pollock/ ] painting. Visible is a complex array of gas filaments [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980208.html ] rushing out at over 5 million kilometers per hour. Even at these tremendous speeds, though, it takes a filament over 600 years to cross the 3 light year [ http://www.howstuffworks.com/question94.htm ] wide frame. The rapidly spinning neutron star [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/nstar.html ] remnant [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981128.html ] of this ancient cataclysm [ http://violet.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/hstcrab/hstcrab.html ] is visible as the lower of the two bright stars just above the photograph [ http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/2000june1/crabtable.html#facts ] center. The Crab Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991122.html ] (M1 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960626.html ]) is located 6,500 light-years away towards the constellation [ http://www.starshine.com/frankn/constell.asp ] of Taurus [ http://www.astronomical.org/constellations/tau.html ]. |
|
GLAST Gamma Ray Sky Simulati
…
| Title |
GLAST Gamma Ray Sky Simulation |
| Explanation |
What shines in the gamma-ray sky? This simulated image models the intensities of gamma rays [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/epo/nasm/VU/index.html ] with over 40 million times the energy of visible light, and represents how the sky might appear to the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope [ http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (GLAST) after its first year in orbit. Familiar steady stars are absent from the dramatic 80x80 degree field which looks directly away from the center of the Galaxy. Instead, the Geminga [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l2/timing.html ] and Crab pulsars [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/96/22.html ] - bizarre, spinning stellar corpses known to be neutron stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980425.html ] - are the two brightest gamma-ray sources. These and other gamma-ray bright objects in the field, monstrous active galaxies [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/ active_galaxies.html ] and still unknown [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000324.html ] sources, have been detected by the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/egret/ ] (EGRET) on the orbiting Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov ]. However, most of the simulated sources are new - extrapolating current ideas and anticipating discoveries resulting from GLAST's improved gamma-ray vision [ http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Anticen/ ]. The central broad band of faint gamma-ray emission is due to high-energy cosmic rays [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980618.html ] colliding with interstellar gas in the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980523.html ], while below is a diffuse energetic glow from prominent molecular clouds [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970430.html ] in Monoceros, Orion, Auriga, and Taurus. Intended to explore [ http://www-glast.sonoma.edu/ ] extreme environments in the distant cosmos [ http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] and planned for launch in 2005, GLAST is under development by NASA, U.S., and international partners. |
|
Composite Crab
| Title |
Composite Crab |
| Explanation |
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's [ http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/history/biograph.html ] famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab [ http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m001_rosse.html ] is now known to be a supernova remnant [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/ supernova_remnants.html ], expanding debris from the death explosion of a massive star. This intriguing [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/crab/ ] false-color image combines data from space-based observatories, Chandra [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/ ], Hubble [ http://hubblesite.org/ ], and Spitzer [ http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu ], to explore the debris cloud [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/crab/ animations.html ] in x-rays (blue-purple), optical (green), and infrared (red) light. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050326.html ], a neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is the bright spot near picture center. Like a cosmic dynamo [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990929.html ], this collapsed remnant of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab Nebula is 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus [ http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/taurus/ ]. |
|
The T Tauri Star Forming Sys
…
| Title |
The T Tauri Star Forming System |
| Explanation |
What did the Sun look like before there were planets? A prototype laboratory for the formation of low mass stars like our Sun is the T Tauri system [ http://etacha.as.arizona.edu/~eem/ttau/ ], one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation [ http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/asp/constellation.faq.html ] of Taurus [ http://www.astronomical.org/constellations/tau.html ]. In young systems [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/gallery/stars_ttauri.html ], gravity causes a gas cloud [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990511.html ] to condense. The situation then usually becomes quite complex, as some of the infalling gas is heated so much by collisions that it is immediately expelled as an outgoing wind [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000318.html ]. Complex geometries including jets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991129.html ] and disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991219.html ] form as the infalling and outflowing gas collide and interact with a changing magnetic field [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001203.html ]. Pictured above [ http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Science/Astros/Imageofweek/ciw290500.html ] is a false-color image of the T Tauri system itself, which turns out to be a binary [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ]. In a few million years [ http://www.go.ednet.ns.ca/~larry/stars/prtostar.html ], the central condensate will likely become hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion [ http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/ ], by which time much of the surrounding circumstellar material will either have fallen in or have been driven off by the stellar wind [ http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wsolwind.html ]. At that time, a new star [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971008.html ] will shine. |
|
Apollo 17's Lunar Rover
| Title |
Apollo 17's Lunar Rover |
| Explanation |
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001209.html ] astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours exploring [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17j.html ] the Moon's Taurus-Littrow valley [ http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/expmoon/Apollo17/A17_lsite.html ] while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. Cernan and Schmitt were the last humans to walk or ride on the Moon - aided in their explorations [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010523.html ] by a Lunar Roving Vehicle [ http://www-sn.jsc.nasa.gov/PlanetaryMissions/EXLibrary/docs/ ApolloCat/Part1/LRV.htm ]. The skeletal-looking lunar rover was [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/ lrvhand.html ] just over 10 feet long, 6 feet wide and easily carried astronauts, equipment, and rock samples in the Moon's [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html ] low gravity (about 1/6 Earth's). In this picture [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html ], Cernan stands at the back of the rover which carried the two astronauts in lawn-chair style seats. An umbrella-shaped high gain antenna and TV camera are mounted in the front. Powered by four 1/4 horsepower electric motors, one for each wheel [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990501.html ], this rover was driven a total of about 18 miles across the lunar surface [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html ]. Its estimated top speed was a blazing 8 miles per hour. |
|
Pioneer 10: The First 7 Bill
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| Title |
Pioneer 10: The First 7 Billion Miles |
| Explanation |
"Q:" What was made by humans and is 7.3 billion miles away? "A:" Pioneer 10 -- and 1997 was the 25th anniversary [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/ ] of its launch. Almost 11 light-hours distant, Pioneer 10 is presently [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/ PNStat.html ] about twice as far from the Sun as Pluto, and bound for interstellar space [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/ path.html ] at 28,000 miles per hour. The distinction of being the first human artifact to venture beyond the known planets [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cosmic/solar_system.html ] of the Solar System is just one in a long list of firsts for this spacefaring ambassador [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960630.html ], including, the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and explore the outer Solar System [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961214.html ], the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter [ http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/galileo_probe/index.html ], and the first to use a planet's gravity to change [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf4-1.htm#gravity ] its course and to reach solar-system-escape velocity. Pioneer 10's mission [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/mission/ index.html ] is nearing an end. Now exploring the distant reaches of the heliosphere [ http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/neugeb01/neugeb01.html ] it will soon run out of sufficient electrical power to operate science instruments. However, the 570 lb. spacecraft [ ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1997/97-031.txt ] will continue to coast and in 300,000 years or so it will pass within about 3 light years of nearby star [ http://cassfos02.ucsd.edu/public/nearest.html ] Ross 248. Ross 248 is a faint red dwarf just over 10 light years distant in the constellation Taurus. (Note: In 1998 Voyager 1 [ http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager.html ], launched 5 years later but traveling faster than Pioneer 10, became humanity's most distant spacecraft.) |
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Apollo 17's Lunar Rover
| Title |
Apollo 17's Lunar Rover |
| Explanation |
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031109.html ] astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours exploring [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17j.html ] the Moon's Taurus-Littrow valley [ http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo17/ A17_lsite.html ] while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020628.html ]. Cernan and Schmitt were the last humans to walk or ride on the Moon - aided in their explorations [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010523.html ] by a Lunar Roving Vehicle [ http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/ EXLibrary/docs/ApolloCat/Part1/LRV.htm ]. The skeletal-looking lunar rover was [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/ lrvhand.html ] just over 10 feet long, 6 feet wide and easily carried astronauts, equipment, and rock samples in the Moon's [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html ] low gravity (about 1/6 Earth's). In this picture [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html ], Cernan stands at the back of the rover which carried the two astronauts in lawn-chair style seats. An umbrella-shaped high gain antenna and TV camera are mounted in the front. Powered by four 1/4 horsepower electric motors, one for each wheel [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040417.html ], this rover was driven a total of about 18 miles across the lunar surface [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html ]. Its estimated top speed was a blazing 8 miles per hour. |
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Twin Proto-Planetary Disks
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Twin Proto-Planetary Disks |
| Explanation |
Sun-like stars [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/sun_parts.html ] are forming - and probably planets too [ http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/departement/darc/planets/encycl.html ] - hidden inside [ http://donald.phast.umass.edu/theses/dianne/chap1/node5.html ] Lynds 1551, an interstellar cloud of molecular gas and dust in the constellation [ http://www.mtwilson.edu/Education/ConQuiz/ ] Taurus. Using new receivers, coordinated radio telescopes at the Very Large Array [ http://www.nrao.edu/vla/html/VLAhome.shtml ] near Socorro, New Mexico, USA, can now sharply image the dusty proto-planetary disks surrounding these young stars at radio wavelengths. Just announced, this exciting example [ http://www.nrao.edu/pr/protodisks.html ] shows a false-color radio [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980917.html ] picture of twin disks in a double star system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ]! A yellow bar indicates the scale in astronomical units (AUs) where one AU is the average distance between the Earth and Sun. The stars (unseen near the center of each disk) are about 45 AUs apart, comparable to the radius of the orbit of Pluto [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html ]. Similar proto-planetary disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980423.html ] have been seen around single stars, but these twin disks are much smaller, each limited in size by the gravity of the nearby companion star [ http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/courses/astro201/kepler_binary.htm ]. In fact, if large planets form orbiting near the edges of these disks they may be ejected from the binary system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980529.html ]. |
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GLAST Gamma-Ray Sky Simulati
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GLAST Gamma-Ray Sky Simulation |
| Explanation |
This simulated image models the intensities of gamma rays [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/outreach/nasm/VU/ ] with over 40 million times the energy of visible light, and represents how the sky might appear to the proposed Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope [ http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (GLAST) after its first year in orbit. Familiar steady stars are absent from the dramatic 80x80 degree field which looks directly away from the center of the Galaxy. Instead, the Geminga [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l2/timing.html ] and Crab pulsars [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/96/22.html ] - bizarre, spinning stellar corpses known to be neutron stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980425.html ] - are the two brightest gamma-ray sources. These and other bright objects in the field, dense pulsars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980211.html ], monstrous active galaxies [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/active_galaxies.html ], and still unknown sources, have been detected by the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/egret/ ] (EGRET) on the orbiting Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov ]. However, most of the simulated point sources are new - extrapolating current ideas and anticipating discoveries resulting from GLAST's improved gamma-ray vision [ http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov/Anticen/ ]. The central broad band of faint gamma-ray emission is due to high-energy cosmic rays [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980618.html ] colliding with interstellar gas in the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980523.html ], while below is a diffuse energetic glow from prominent molecular clouds [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970430.html ] in Monoceros, Orion, Auriga, and Taurus. Intended to explore [ http://perry.sonoma.edu/ ] the most extreme energy sources in the distant cosmos [ http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] and planned for launch in 2005, the GLAST mission [ http://wwwmipd.gsfc.nasa.gov/glast/glast.htm ] is under development [ http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov/Summary/ ] by NASA and a collaboration of U. S. and international partners. |
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Crab Nebula Mosaic from HST
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Crab Nebula Mosaic from HST |
| Explanation |
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's [ http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/history/biograph.html ] famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the cosmic Crab [ http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m001_rosse.html ] is now known to be a supernova remnant [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/ supernova_remnants.html ], an expanding cloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star. Light from that stellar catastrophe was first witnessed by astronomers [ http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m001_sn.html ] on planet Earth in the year 1054. Composed of 24 exposures [ http://www.skyfactory.org/hst/crab/crab.htm ] taken in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000, this Hubble Space Telescope mosaic [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/ 2005/37/ ] spans about twelve light years. Colors in the intricate filaments trace the light emitted from atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur in the debris cloud. The spooky blue interior glow is emitted by high-energy electrons accelerated by the Crab's central [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000605.html ] pulsar. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the pulsar is [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050326.html ] a neutron star, the spinning remnant of the collapsed stellar core. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus [ http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/taurus/ ]. |
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Star-Crossed Rings
PIA08036
Saturn
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrog
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| Title |
Star-Crossed Rings |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This image is a false-color ultraviolet view of Saturn's B ring (center) and A ring (right), separated by a large gap known as the Cassini Division. It shows a bright horizontal streak, created by a series of time lapse images involving a star named 26 Taurus. The image was made over a nine-hour period as the star drifted behind the rings. The opacity of the outer A ring is most pronounced on its inner edge, indicating more ring debris is present there. The Encke Gap, much smaller than the Cassini Division, is visible near the outer edge of the A ring. The B ring is significantly more opaque than the A ring, indicating a greater density of ring material when imaged from above. The sky behind the rings glows red in the ultraviolet wavelengths from the hydrogen gas that fills the solar system. The images were processed from data taken by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph aboard the Cassini spacecraft in May 2005. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was built at, and the team is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ]. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team home page is at http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini [ http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini ]. |
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The Seven Sisters
PIA08260
Unknown target/parent relati
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Imaging Science Subsystem -
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| Title |
The Seven Sisters |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The stars of the Pleiades cluster, also known by the names "M45" and "the Seven Sisters," shine brightly in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. The cluster is comprised of hundreds of stars, a few of which are visible to the unaided eye on Earth as a brilliant grouping in the constellation Taurus. Some faint nebulous material is seen here. This reflection nebula is dust that reflects the light of the hot, blue stars in the cluster. The monochrome view was made by combining 49 clear filter images of the Pleiades taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 1, 2006. The images were taken as a part of a sequence designed to help calibrate the camera electronics. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ]. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org [ http://ciclops.org ]. |
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