Starship Asterisk*

The Wyrm Ouroboros wrote:The molecular cloud looks like a raven, two upraised wings (the one to our left one being shortened) and its head and tail down, head to the right.

starsurfer wrote:Very beautiful image of one of my favourite reflection nebulae! I particularly like regions that include Herbig Haro objects, since the discovery of HH 1 in the 1950's, more than a thousand are now catalogued.

I'm sure Ann would approve of this image!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_molecular_cloud wrote:

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<<The Perseus molecular cloud (Per MCld) is a nearby (600 ly) giant molecular cloud in the constellation of Perseus and contains over 10,000 solar masses of gas and dust covering an area of 6 by 2 degrees. Unlike the Orion molecular cloud it is almost invisible apart from two clusters, IC 348 and NGC 1333, where low-mass stars are formed. It is very bright at mid and far-infrared wavelengths and in the submillimeter originating in dust heated by the newly formed low-mass stars.

It shows a curious ring structure in maps made by the IRAS and MSX satellites and the Spitzer Space Telescope and has recently detected by the COSMOSOMAS at microwave frequencies as a source of anomalous "spinning dust" emission. "Spinning dust" emission could arise from the electric dipole of very rapidly spinning (10–60 GHz) extremely small (nanometer) dust grains (Draine & Lazarian 1998), most likely polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The anomalous emission was first discovered as a by-product of Cosmic Microwave Background observations which make very sensitive measurements of the microwave sky which have to identify and remove contamination from the galaxy.>>

Ann wrote:
But while I love the picture, I'm just slightly less impressed with NGC 1333 itself, a region of low-mass star formation.

Several little red dwarfs will be born out of that dusty cocoon, and probably one of two stars like the Sun, too. But how massive will the biggest star be that is born from this particular stellar breeding ground?

• Rogue Failed Star Is One of Smallest Ever Seen

Ann wrote:But while I love the picture, I'm just slightly less impressed with NGC 1333 itself, a region of low-mass star formation. Several little red dwarfs will be born out of that dusty cocoon, and probably one of two stars like the Sun, too. But how massive will the biggest star be that is born from this particular stellar breeding ground? Will it be as massive as Regulus, 3.4 solar masses according to Jim Kaler?

Chris Peterson wrote:
Of course, it's those bitty little dwarfs that are most likely to have complex life around them in a billion years- when the big bright ones are long gone.

William Huggins (1865) wrote: “A community of matter appears to exist throughout the visible universe, for the stars contain many of the elements which exist in the Sun and Earth. It is remarkable that the elements most widely diffused through the host of stars are some of those most closely connected with the living organisms of our globe, including hydrogen, sodium, magnesium, and iron. May it not be that, at least, the brighter stars are like our Sun, the upholding and energizing centres of systems of worlds, adapted to be the abode of living beings?”