NASA Unveils Tarantula Nebula as ‘Stellar Bouquet’ for Valentine’s Day
The tarantula-like nebula sounds better for Halloween than Valentine’s Day. But look at it. You can see why NASA thinks it is an appropriate astronomy gift for love and flowers. NASA Share View of nebulaFebruary 12, more formally known as 30 doradus (or 30 doradus), describes it as a “bouquet of stars.”
Images combine NASA data Chandra X-ray ObservatoryHubble Space Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, Chile’s Telescope. Compare James Webb Space Telescope See in 2022.
Not that spider
Some early views from 30 Dor highlight the Nebula’s spider thorn silk and gas silk. The new image looks like purple cosmic marshmallows, not spider webs.
“I think our more modern versions, especially the X-ray images, don’t look like spiders at all,” astronomers Matthew Povich Cal Poly Pomona said via email. Povich is the co-author of the latest research 30 DOR.
Nebula is located 160,000 light-years in the adjacent Milky Way, with a large barley cloud.
Nebula is a nursery for stars with numerous huge stars in its center.
“The huge young star at 30 years old emits the strong winds of the universe into space,” NASA said. “With matter and energy ejected by previously exploded stars, these winds also carved a striking display of arcs, pillars and bubbles,” he said. .”
Some of these stars are only 1 to 2 million years old. Compare it to the sun 5 billion years ago.
Chandra looks for 30 X-ray emission sources of Doradus. This is Chandra’s contribution to composite images.
Chandra’s contribution to the new image is important. It represents a 23-day observation to seek the source of X-rays. It found thousands.
“The 3,615 X-ray sources detected by Chandra include a mixture of huge stars, binary stars, bright stars that are still in the process of forming, and smaller clusters of young stars,” NASA said.
Look for the blue and green parts of the image to find Chandra’s field of view share.
Jump into 30 dor
There is a lot of science behind the beauty of 30 Door. A team of astronomers and astrophysicists used Chandra’s X-ray data to conduct a published study Astrophysics Journal Supplementary Series last year. The paper describes 30 DOR as “a microscope in Starburst astrophysics.” Long observation times allow researchers to track changes in stars, including the movement of binary stars.
“X-ray data particularly emphasizes a large number of starry sky and Violent deaths by big stars have been happening in the region for the past 200 to 30 million years. ” Povich said.
The annotated image points to important features such as in NASA’s view of 30 Dorados, star clusters, supernova residues and superfoams.
Povich pointed out some important features in NASA outreach images. Note that the central cluster of huge stars is called R136.
The annotated image also shows a supernova residue and a superbubble that may be produced by multiple supernovae.
“These functions did not appear at all in other images, they were only evident in X-rays, which is the result of the explosive death of giant stars,” Povich said.
NASA’s 30 DOR connection to Valentine’s Day makes sense for Povich. astronomer Leisa Townsley Penn State University is the lead author of the study. The paper was published after its death in 2022. Pavic described the project as a “labor of love” in honor of mentors, collaborators and close friends. “I completed this article using her detailed instructions, datasheets and visualizations,” he said.
If you like the sweetness of the lover in science, this “bouquet of budding young stars” is for you. Here is a potential description of how your Amor works with the image: “Our love is like a large binary star system in 30 Doradus. We make a pair great!”
