APOD: Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out (2012 Jul 29)

[APOD Robot]

Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out

Explanation: In the center of star-forming region 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars, known collectively as star cluster R136, were captured above in visible light by the Wide Field Camera peering through the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. Gas and dust clouds in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerful winds and ultraviolet radiation from these hot cluster stars. The 30 Doradus Nebula lies within a neighboring galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud and is located a mere 170,000 light-years away.

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[neufer]

The Westerlund 1 super star cluster has never gotten an APOD

[saturno2]

Star cluster 136 is a group of stars very massive and hottest. Very blue, too.
The star forming region is interesting for study of the formation of a star.

[saturno2]

Thanks, Neufer.
Indeed. Westerlund 1 ( Cluster of Ara ) is the Super Star Cluster more important of the Group Local of Galaxies ( Wikipedia)
More important for study, too

[flamespaceship]

The large scale interactions amongst dust, gases and stars are often amazingly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Is enough known about the distribution of stars, dust and gases in the vicinity our our Sun and its neighboring stars to be able to reconstruct how our region of space might appear to a distant observer? They must be out there looking, so what do they see?

[Mario]

gee!... What a panorama!
I wonder how would be to see at this stellar field, on an hypotetical planet, orbiting around a star, just in the middle of this breathtaking view...
Maybe too many GIGANTIC stars in so small volume, would let the nighttime lit as daytime... who knows!

[Guest]

Ciao flameship!!!

Who knows, I don't know! BUT|
Are we in a star forming region like that?
Personally I think NO, since one of thise gigantic clouds, should have be already seen (discovered).
Isn't it?
So. maybe we're in a kinda QUIET lonely place, where all is already happened!
ciao
Mario

The large scale interactions amongst dust, gases and stars are often amazingly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Is enough known about the distribution of stars, dust and gases in the vicinity our our Sun and its neighboring stars to be able to reconstruct how our region of space might appear to a distant observer? They must be out there looking, so what do they see?

[Chris Peterson]

The large scale interactions amongst dust, gases and stars are often amazingly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Is enough known about the distribution of stars, dust and gases in the vicinity our our Sun and its neighboring stars to be able to reconstruct how our region of space might appear to a distant observer? They must be out there looking, so what do they see?

Sure. Our region of the galaxy is largely unobscured by dust, so we know it very well. A skilled renderer could produce an accurate simulated view of our region from another viewpoint. It wouldn't be very interesting in comparison with images like today's APOD. We're in a little bubble of gas which would glow slightly instrumentally, but there isn't much going on here. Which is a good thing for us!

[eltodesukane]

Our stellar neighborhood, within 12.5 ly
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html

A list of stars within 20 ly
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nearstar.html

I wish we would send a small fast (ion propelled?) space probe toward proxima centaurii, 4.22 ly away.
It would take a long time to get there, so we should sent it sooner rather than later.
We have the technology, we could do it, and learn a lot about interstellar space and another star.
Such a probe would be much faster and much more advanced than the Pionner's and Voyager's already cruising away from the sun.

[gar37bic]

gee!... What a panorama!
I wonder how would be to see at this stellar field, on an hypotetical planet, orbiting around a star, just in the middle of this breathtaking view...
Maybe too many GIGANTIC stars in so small volume, would let the nighttime lit as daytime... who knows!

I was just thinking similar thoughts - if one lived on a planet in the midst of such a cluster, it might be daytime-bright, or at least moonlight-bright, all the time. But that raises two questions - one, would the additional influx of UV and extrasolar particle streams (cosmic rays, etc.) make it impossible for life as we know it? And also, I wonder if having many stars close by would cause gravitational drag, slowing planets down until they fall into uninhabitable range or into their star itself?

[neufer]

I wonder how would be to see at this stellar field, on an hypothetical planet, orbiting around a star, just in the middle of this breathtaking view... Maybe too many GIGANTIC stars in so small volume, would let the nighttime lit as daytime... who knows!

I was just thinking similar thoughts - if one lived on a planet in the midst of such a cluster,
it might be daytime-bright, or at least moonlight-bright, all the time.

• Moonlight bright at most.

[b][color=#0000FF]Westerlund 1 super cluster at visible (left) and X-ray (right) wavelengths. Due to the large interstellar reddening the hot, blue OB supergiants appear red, as all the blue light from the stars has been absorbed. The Westerlund 1 magnetar is marked in the X-ray image.[/color][/b]

---

But that raises two questions - one, would the additional influx of UV and extrasolar particle streams (cosmic rays, etc.) make it impossible for life as we know it? And also, I wonder if having many stars close by would cause gravitational drag, slowing planets down until they fall into uninhabitable range or into their star itself?

These short lived bright stars would not last long enough to permit even the most primitive life to form (and certainly not long enough for gravitational perturbations to become significant). And even if life were to get started radiation (especially from supernovae) would be a constant threat.

[eltodesukane]

Over the last 4 billions years, as the Sun rotates around the galaxy, crossing galactic arms and passing through who knows what clouds or clusters, I wonder what are the probability of the Earth never coming too close to a lethal exploding supernova. Only the lucky ones would live to tell.

[neufer]

Over the last 4 billions years, as the Sun rotates around the galaxy, crossing galactic arms and passing through who knows what clouds or clusters, I wonder what are the probability of the Earth never coming too close to a lethal exploding supernova. Only the lucky ones would live to tell.

<<Adrian L. Melott et al. estimated that gamma ray bursts from "dangerously close" supernova explosions occur two or more times per billion years, and this has been proposed as the cause of the end Ordovician extinction, which resulted in the death of nearly 60% of the oceanic life on Earth. Type Ia supernovae are thought to be potentially the most dangerous if they occur close enough to the Earth. Because Type Ia supernovae arise from dim, common white dwarf stars, it is likely that a supernova that could affect the Earth will occur unpredictably and take place in a star system that is not well studied. One theory suggests that a Type Ia supernova would have to be closer than 10 parsecs to affect the Earth. On average, a supernova explosion occurs within 10 parsecs of the Earth every 240 million years. Gamma rays are responsible for most of the adverse effects a supernova can have on a living terrestrial planet. In Earth's case, gamma rays induce a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere, converting molecular nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, depleting the ozone layer enough to expose the surface to harmful solar and cosmic radiation. Phytoplankton and reef communities would be particularly affected, which could badly deplete the base of the marine food chain.

Evidence from daughter products of short-lived radioactive isotopes shows that a nearby supernova helped determine the composition of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago, and may even have triggered the formation of this system. Supernova production of heavy elements over astronomic periods of time ultimately made the chemistry of life on Earth possible.

In 1996, astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign theorized that traces of past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Subsequently, iron-60 enrichment has been reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean by researchers from the Technical University of Munich. 23 atoms of this iron isotope were found in the top 2 cm of crust, and these date from the last 13 million years or so. It is estimated that the supernova must have occurred in the last 5 million years or else it would have had to have happened very close to the solar system to account for so much iron-60 still being here. A supernova occurring as close as would have been needed would have probably caused a mass extinction, which didn't happen in that time frame.

In 2009, researchers have found nitrates in ice cores from Antarctica at depths corresponding to the known supernovae of 1006 and 1054 CE, as well as from around 1060 CE. The nitrates were apparently formed from nitrogen oxides created by gamma rays from the supernovae. This technique should be able to detect supernovae going back several thousand years.>>

[Ann]

The Westerlund 1 super star cluster has never gotten an APOD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerlund_1 wrote:
Wd1 is too remote for direct measurement of the distance via parallax measurements, and the distance must be estimated from the expected absolute magnitude of the stars and estimates of the extinction towards the cluster. This has been done for both the yellow hypergiant[2] and Wolf–Rayet[6] populations, yielding estimates around 5 kpc in both cases, while a determination from the main-sequence population suggests 3.6 kpc.[7] These estimates all place Wd1 near the outer edge of the Galactic bar, which may be significant in determining how such a massive cluster formed.

Interesting. It is not uncommon for barred galaxies to show enhanced star formation near one or both ends of the bar. Two such examples are NGC 1530 and NGC 7496. An even more perfect example is NGC 6217 by Hubble. Please note the huge cluster at the lower left, right at one end of the bar.

Click to view full size image

© Kuiper Airborne Observatory NASA-714

But an even more fascinating example is, in fact, R136 itself, the massive cluster in today's APOD. While not situated exactly at the end of the bar of LMC, it is clearly situated near the end of the bar of LMC.

It is interesting to think that Westerlund 1 may be the R136 cluster of the bar of the Milky Way.



Ann

[NoelC]

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... fastfacts/

14.3 hours of total exposure time on the Hubble! 170,000 light-years distant!!

It images things in other galaxies that we can only barely image this well in our galaxy via other means. What a wonderful piece of equipment.

-Noel

[NoelC]

The Westerlund 1 super star cluster has never gotten an APOD

ESO image of same: http://archive.org/details/CHAN-118

-Noel

[flamespaceship]

The large scale interactions amongst dust, gases and stars are often amazingly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Is enough known about the distribution of stars, dust and gases in the vicinity our our Sun and its neighboring stars to be able to reconstruct how our region of space might appear to a distant observer? They must be out there looking, so what do they see?

Sure. Our region of the galaxy is largely unobscured by dust, so we know it very well. A skilled renderer could produce an accurate simulated view of our region from another viewpoint. It wouldn't be very interesting in comparison with images like today's APOD. We're in a little bubble of gas which would glow slightly instrumentally, but there isn't much going on here. Which is a good thing for us!

Are you implying that even the few old stars with planets (and potentially with life) that happen to be in the vicinity of these photogenic nebulae would be sterilized by the intense radiation emitted by all of those many young energetic stars whose emissions light these nebulae? If that logic holds, do the current planet searches focus on quiescent older regions of the galaxy to increase the odds of finding planets in less toxic environments?

[Chris Peterson]

Are you implying that even the few old stars with planets (and potentially with life) that happen to be in the vicinity of these photogenic nebulae would be sterilized by the intense radiation emitted by all of those many young energetic stars whose emissions light these nebulae?

It's not a good environment for planetary systems, especially for those that might harbor life (as we know it). Certainly, radiation might be a problem, although that's not the biggest issue. There are many young, massive stars, and that means many supernovas. Very bad if you're close to one. And the regions are often pretty dense, which means you have gravitational perturbations that can mess with the orbits of planets in local systems. Also bad for any with life on them.

If that logic holds, do the current planet searches focus on quiescent older regions of the galaxy to increase the odds of finding planets in less toxic environments?

Planet searches focus on looking for planets, not looking for planets that might have Earth-like environments. All types of environments are explored, because that's the only way to develop a complete picture of planetary formation.

[BMAONE23]

The cloud in the upper left corner reminds me of a carachter from this masterpiece seen smiling into frame at 3:33 (Glovey)

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

This Glove happens to be pointing at the only bright Non-Blue star in the image