Starship Asterisk*

Mystic Mountain Monster being Destroyed

Explanation: Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The huge monster, actually an inanimate series of pillars of gas and dust, measures light years in length. The in-head star is not itself visible through the opaque interstellar dust but is bursting out partly by ejecting opposing beams of energetic particles called Herbig-Haro jets. Located about 7,500 light years away in the Carina Nebula and known informally as Mystic Mountain, the appearance of these pillars is dominated by dark dust even though they are composed mostly of clear hydrogen gas. The featured image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. All over these pillars, the energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed. Within a few million years, the head of this giant, as well as most of its body, will have been completely evaporated by internal and surrounding stars.

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Looks like there is more than one set of jets in the Mystic Mountain in the APOD.


The stars being born in the Mystic Mountain strikes me as typical triggered formation of second generation stars. These stars form at the top of pillars, which are being compressed and eroded away by the strong stellar wind and onslaught of ultraviolet light of pre-existing massive stars. Good examples are just like the stars forming at the top of the Cone Nebula, at the top of the Horsehead Nebula or at the top of one of the Pillars of Creation.

High-mass "first generation" stars form differently, I think. I like the picture of the cosmic Snake at right.

NASA wrote:

The Snake: With a name inspired by its serpentine shape, this extremely filamentary cloud is about 12,000 light-years away with a total mass of 100,000 Suns. Scattered along the Snake are warm, dense dust clouds, each containing about 1,000 times the mass of the Sun in gas and dust. These clouds are being heated by young, massive stars forming inside of them. The Snake may be a section of a much longer filament that is a “Bone of the Milky Way,” tracing out the galaxy’s spiral structure.

Speaking of triggered star formation: I love this little "nebula-man" in the Pillars of Creation. This little guy looks like he is balancing a lit candle on his cheek or nose, near his eye. "The flame of the candle", of course, must be a new-born low-mass star, and the "candle" itself must be a small starforming dusty pillar.

Ann

I like the head that reminds me of Washington! Lot's of head
formations in this nebula!

The Hubble photo in infrared makes a nice addition. Sorry, don't know how to create the link.
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1007f/

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 11:57 am MysticPillar_HubbleSchmidt_960.jpg

I like the head that reminds me of Washington! Lot's of head
formations in this nebula!

You're right, Orin, there really are similarities!

Ann

In the lower right there is a rather interesting warped dust cloud. Is there more to be said about this object?

Looks to me like a mid-kaboom shot of the giant robot that gets blowed up real good by the hero in the final reel. Complete with bits of debris flying in all directions.

Should be called the polar bear nebula.

Ann wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 9:02 am
The stars being born in the Mystic Mountain strikes me as typical triggered formation of second generation stars. These stars form at the top of pillars, which are being compressed and eroded away by the strong stellar wind and onslaught of ultraviolet light of pre-existing massive stars. Good examples are just like the stars forming at the top of the Cone Nebula, at the top of the Horsehead Nebula or at the top of one of the Pillars of Creation.

Ann

ThanX Geck for your awesome picture...
ThanX Ann to your interesting comment...

...what a strong stellar wind from Trumpler 14, an open cluster with a diameter of six light-years, located within the inner regions of the Carina Nebula, approximately 8,980 light-years from Earth...

Jac

NCTom wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 12:30 pm The Hubble photo in infrared makes a nice addition. Sorry, don't know how to create the link.
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1007f/

Okay, here's what I "discovered";
When you are writing a comment, notice the "buttons" (e.g. B (bold) U (underline)) above the Text box.
Click on one of the img* buttons, and 2 HTML "words" enclosed in square brackets will appear in the Text box.
Put the link to the photo between the two words.
At the spacetelescope.org page you posted, I "right clicked" on the IR image and selected "Copy Link Location" and pasted it between the 2 HTML img words below)

QED