Starship Asterisk*

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002090/ wrote:
Blink comparison of visible and infrared Hubble images of Carina nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team / blink gif by Emily Lakdawalla

<<The image of the colorful pillar, which was taken in visible light wavelengths, shows the tip of a 3-light-year-long structure of gas and dust located 7,500 light years away. The pillar is shaped both from outside -- stellar wind from giant nearby stars (out of the frame) punch into it, compressing it -- and from inside -- as the compression of the gas has produced new stars within it. The new stars are mostly invisible in the visible-light image. But in infrared wavelengths (a new capability for the wide-field camera on Hubble) the dust is transparent, and the baby stars are revealed. One of them, at the center of the frame, spouts two impressive jets. Data for the two images were taken by Hubble's newly installed WFC3 on July 24-30, 2009.>>

AlejoHausner wrote:It looks like the two jets are radially symmetric, but not collinear. Maybe the jet axis is precessing. If so, the rest of the nebula, composed of matter ejected by the star, has been sprayed out from the star, just like a rotating water sprinkler, and should also be radially symmetric. Has anyone looked into reconstructing the hidden side of the nebula based on this assumption? Are there ways to do that?

rndkrieg wrote:Near the left edge of the photo, just below center (from top to bottom), there is a star that is VERY bright in infrared (one of the brightest in the image) but barely discernible in the visible light version. Unlike the stars in the nebula, it does not appear to be obscured by dust and gas. Can anyone tell me what is going on with that star?

JohnD wrote:On the jets, is the one to the left associated with the material almost exactly along its line, but a long way further out? If the nebula is two light years across, then the tip of that material is another three light years away. Has the jet been going that long?

Chris Peterson wrote: Because the material is moving so fast, you can see the shapes of the jets change over just a few months or years. The jet material seen in this APOD is very young- much less so than the young star that is producing it.

JohnD wrote:On the jets, is the one to the left associated with the material almost exactly along its line, but a long way further out? If the nebula is two light years across, then the tip of that material is another three light years away. Has the jet been going that long?

Chris Peterson wrote:It does look like you can see jet material pretty far out on the left. Jets like this frequently eject material at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, so structures several light years long are common. Because the material is moving so fast, you can see the shapes of the jets change over just a few months or years. The jet material seen in this APOD is very young- much less so than the young star that is producing it.

ARMistice wrote:I've found a few anomilies when mousing over the image. The circled areas have objects moving (line points to the object). They are clearly visible in both images so I don't believe that they're separate objects, but depending on the distance, they'd have to be traveling very fast (depending on the time between each image was taken, as well as distance from Earth)

Any ideas?