esahubble_opo9905p February 9th, 1999
Credit: D. Padgett (IPAC/Caltech), W. Brandner (IPAC), K. Stapelfeldt (JPL) and NASA/ESA
In this image of IRAS 04248+2612, the infrared eyes of NICMOS peer through a dusty cloud to reveal a double-star system in formation. A nebula extends at least 65 billion miles (105 billion kilometres) in opposite directions from the twin stars, and is illuminated by them. This nebula was formed from material ejected by the young star system. The apparent 'pinching' of this nebula close to the binary suggests that a ring or disk of dust and gas surrounds the two stars.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9905p/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
Providers | Sign In