Starship Asterisk*

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:

Ann wrote:

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:Very inspiring picture and captivating but I just dont see a running chicken when I look at the picture I really dont see anything I can easily describe.

Click to view full size image

Photo: Mario Cogo

You can see the Running Chicken Nebula here.

The round head of the chicken is at upper right. The chicken is looking down, and its open bill is pointing down. The chicken has got an eye in the middle of its head.

One clumsy Donald Duck foot is protruding to the lower right. The other foot is missing.

At upper center is what looks like one raised wing, as if the chicken was flapping its wings as it is running. Above the chicken's head is what might be the the other wing.

The rest of the nebula is the chicken's round, well-fed body.

The bright star in the middle of the chicken's body is Lambda Centauri. This is a foreground star, not part of the cluster that ionizes the nebula.

The full Running Chicken Nebula is quite big. Today's APOD is a small part of the full nebula. Take a look at this picture. The bright star at upper right is Lambda Centauri. Tody's APOD is centered on the small group in the middle of the picture that I just gave you a link to. Note the small Bok globules floating around there.

Finally, take a look at this APOD from 2010. The Running Chicken Nebula is at lower left, and it appears to be "chasing" the large Carina Nebula at upper right.

Ann

Thank you for that Ann!! I see it now. your explanation is spot on.

Ann wrote:

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:Very inspiring picture and captivating but I just dont see a running chicken when I look at the picture I really dont see anything I can easily describe.

Click to view full size image

Photo: Mario Cogo

You can see the Running Chicken Nebula here.

The round head of the chicken is at upper right. The chicken is looking down, and its open bill is pointing down. The chicken has got an eye in the middle of its head.

One clumsy Donald Duck foot is protruding to the lower right. The other foot is missing.

At upper center is what looks like one raised wing, as if the chicken was flapping its wings as it is running. Above the chicken's head is what might be the the other wing.

The rest of the nebula is the chicken's round, well-fed body.

The bright star in the middle of the chicken's body is Lambda Centauri. This is a foreground star, not part of the cluster that ionizes the nebula.

The full Running Chicken Nebula is quite big. Today's APOD is a small part of the full nebula. Take a look at this picture. The bright star at upper right is Lambda Centauri. Tody's APOD is centered on the small group in the middle of the picture that I just gave you a link to. Note the small Bok globules floating around there.

Finally, take a look at this APOD from 2010. The Running Chicken Nebula is at lower left, and it appears to be "chasing" the large Carina Nebula at upper right.

Ann

neufer wrote:

Ann wrote:
You can see the Running Chicken Nebula here...

• . http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080418.html

Ann wrote:
You can see the Running Chicken Nebula here...

• . http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080418.html

Ann wrote:You can see the Running Chicken Nebula here...

Nitpicker wrote:I must try to photograph it and see if I can make it look like I don't have dust on the sensor.

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:Very inspiring picture and captivating but I just dont see a running chicken when I look at the picture I really dont see anything I can easily describe.

Chris Peterson wrote:

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:Very inspiring picture and captivating but I just dont see a running chicken when I look at the picture I really dont see anything I can easily describe.

Google it and you can see a number of annotated images with different opinions about where the chicken is. Keep in mind that high resolution, narrowband images almost always obliterate whatever broad structure originally gave a nebula its name.

Coil_Smoke wrote:... I feel much of astrophysics is speculation. ... I have felt for a long time that Bok's Globules (Not sure about the spelling of Bok) and the "Pillars of Creation" are bi-products of stellar formation. Could they be clouds of dust and smoke expelled by stars when they first "Ignite" ?...

Bok globules are dark clouds of dense cosmic dust and gas in which star formation sometimes takes place. ... Bok globules that are blasted by nearby stars exhibit fragmentation of materials to produce a tail.

CURRAHEE CHRIS wrote:Very inspiring picture and captivating but I just dont see a running chicken when I look at the picture :( I really dont see anything I can easily describe.

Astronomer A.D. Thackeray first spied the globules in IC 2944 in 1950. Globules like these have been known since Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok first drew attention to such objects in 1947

http://www.universetoday.com/91217/sofia-reveals-star-forming-region-w40/ wrote:
This mid-infrared image of the W40 star-forming region of the Milky Way galaxy was captured recently by the FORCAST instrument on the 100-inch telescope aboard the SOFIA flying observatory. (NASA / FORCAST image)

neufer wrote:<<How are the interstellar grains destroyed? There are several ultraviolet processes which lead to grain "explosions" for tiny grains...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporating_gaseous_globule wrote:
<<An evaporating gas globule or EGG is a region of hydrogen gas in outer space approximately 100 astronomical units in size, such that gases shaded by it are shielded from ionizing UV rays. Dense areas of gas shielded by an evaporating gas globule can be conducive to the birth of stars. Evaporating gas globules were first conclusively identified via photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.

EGG's are the likely predecessors of new protostars. Inside an EGG the gas and dust are denser than in the surrounding dust cloud. Gravity pulls the cloud even more tightly together as the EGG continues to draw in material from its surroundings. As the cloud density builds up the globule becomes hotter under the weight of the outer layers, a protostar is formed inside the EGG.

A protostar may have too little mass to become a star. If so it becomes a brown dwarf. If the protostar has sufficient mass, the density reaches a critical level where the temperature exceeds 10 million degrees kelvin at its center. At this point, a nuclear reaction starts converting hydrogen to helium and releasing large amounts of energy. The protostar then becomes a star and joins the main sequence on the HR diagram.>>

Chris Peterson wrote:

zbvhs wrote:
What happens to the material in globules when it's eroded away?
The "eroded away" reference describes gas as evaporating. What are the mechanisms involved?

It just disperses.
The local escape velocity associated with self gravitation is very low in these clouds;
it doesn't take much energy to break them up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_dust#Dust_grain_destruction wrote:
<<How are the interstellar grains destroyed? There are several ultraviolet processes which lead to grain "explosions" for tiny grains. More prominent for interstellar dust grains is sputtering erosion when energetic atoms or ions pierce the surface of a solid to deposit enough energy to cause secondary ions to be ejected from the resulting internal explosion of fast ions. This causes total mass to be sputtered away with a mean lifetime 2-4x10⁸ years.>>

Keyman wrote:

...in scientifically assigned colors

Is there a 'convention' of some kind that has decided/adopted what colors are assigned to specific...I guess, specific elements?

zbvhs wrote:What happens to the material in globules when it's eroded away? The "eroded away" reference describes gas as evaporating. What are the mechanisms involved?

...in scientifically assigned colors