APOD: Mountains of Dust in the Carina Nebula (2022 Aug 01)

[APOD Robot]

Mountains of Dust in the Carina Nebula

Explanation: It's stars versus dust in the Carina Nebula and the stars are winning. More precisely, the energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed. Located in the Carina Nebula and known informally as Mystic Mountain, these pillar's appearance is dominated by the dark dust even though it is composed mostly of clear hydrogen gas. Dust pillars such as these are actually much thinner than air and only appear as mountains due to relatively small amounts of opaque interstellar dust. About 7,500 light-years distant, the featured image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and highlights an interior region of Carina which spans about three light years. Within a few million years, the stars will likely win out completely and the entire dust mountain will evaporate.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[Ann]

Mountains of Dust in the Carina Nebula. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Proccessing: Javier Pobes

---

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Wouldn't it be fun to see the "topmost pillar" spinning like a top because of the star with twin jets embedded inside it?

Ann

[Locutus76]

Wouldn't it be fun to see the "topmost pillar" spinning like a top because of the star with twin jets embedded inside it?

Ann

A kind of interstellar lighthouse perhaps

[Chris Peterson]

Mountains of Dust in the Carina Nebula. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Proccessing: Javier Pobes

---

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Wouldn't it be fun to see the "topmost pillar" spinning like a top because of the star with twin jets embedded inside it? :D

Ann

We'd see a cool looking spiral of the dust if that was the case. (Although in reality I don't think those are jets.)

[orin stepanek]

Always beautiful! Kind of like fog; you can see what is near; but a
block away is completely blind!

Reaching for the stars

[heehaw]

A VERY attractive photo: of a bunch of dust.

[VictorBorun]

(Although in reality I don't think those are jets.)

A Herbig–Haro object is thought to be a pair of jets from a proto-star.
It lasts not millions of years but mere thousands.
It does not spin; the jets are perpendicular to the hot plasma disk that forms around the proto-star and with its differential rotation creates the orbital electric currents, with magnetic field lines roughly perpendicular to the disk to guide the jets out of the plane of the disk

[Chris Peterson]

(Although in reality I don't think those are jets.)

A Herbig–Haro object is thought to be a pair of jets from a proto-star.
It lasts not millions of years but mere thousands.
It does not spin; the jets are perpendicular to the hot plasma disk that forms around the proto-star and with its differential rotation creates the orbital electric currents, with magnetic field lines roughly perpendicular to the disk to guide the jets out of the plane of the disk

They look to me more like EGGs, but I haven't made any close study of it.

[VictorBorun]

(Although in reality I don't think those are jets.)

A Herbig–Haro object is thought to be a pair of jets from a proto-star.
It lasts not millions of years but mere thousands.
It does not spin; the jets are perpendicular to the hot plasma disk that forms around the proto-star and with its differential rotation creates the orbital electric currents, with magnetic field lines roughly perpendicular to the disk to guide the jets out of the plane of the disk

They look to me more like EGGs, but I haven't made any close study of it.

why not both, a pair of jets from a proto-star, now evaporating gas globule?

[Chris Peterson]

A Herbig–Haro object is thought to be a pair of jets from a proto-star.
It lasts not millions of years but mere thousands.
It does not spin; the jets are perpendicular to the hot plasma disk that forms around the proto-star and with its differential rotation creates the orbital electric currents, with magnetic field lines roughly perpendicular to the disk to guide the jets out of the plane of the disk

They look to me more like EGGs, but I haven't made any close study of it.

why not both, a pair of jets from a proto-star, now evaporating gas globule?

Well, if they are EGGs, it's two stars ejected from the dust pillar. If it's a protostar with jets, it's one object inside the pillar.