A lucky observation of an enigmatic cloud

Esahubble_potw1008a_1024

esahubble_potw1008a June 14th, 2010

Credit: ESA/Hubble, R. Sahai and NASA

The little-known nebula IRAS 05437+2502 billows out among the bright stars and dark dust clouds that surround it in this striking image from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is located in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull), close to the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Unlike many of Hubbles targets, this object has not been studied in detail and its exact nature is unclear. At first glance it appears to be a small, rather isolated, region of star formation and one might assume that the effects of fierce ultraviolet radiation from bright young stars probably were the cause of the eye-catching shapes of the gas. However, the bright boomerang-shaped feature may tell a more dramatic tale. The interaction of a high velocity young star and the cloud of gas and dust may have created this unusually sharp-edged bright arc. Such a reckless star would have been ejected from the distant young cluster where it was born and would travel at 200 000 km/hour or more through the nebula. This faint cloud was originally discovered in 1983 by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), the first space telescope to survey the whole sky in the infrared. IRAS was run by the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom and found huge numbers of new objects that were invisible from the ground. This image was taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. It was part of a snapshot survey. These are lists of observations that are fitted into Hubbles busy schedule when possible, without any guarantee that the observation will take place so it was fortunate that the observation was made at all! This picture was created from images taken through yellow (F606W) and near-infrared (F814W) filters. The exposure times were about eleven minutes per filter and the field of view is about 100 arcseconds across. Links Sahai, R., Claussen, M., Morris, M., & Ainsworth, R. 2009, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 41, 456 Rosen, A., Sahai, R., Claussen, M., & Morris, M. 2010, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 41, 264

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1008a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
IRAS 05437+2502
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Star Formation
Esahubble_potw1008a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 46m 51.9s
DEC = 25° 3’ 41.7”
Orientation
North is 92.9° CCW
Field of View
1.7 x 1.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Taurus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Esahubble_potw1008a_1280
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ID
potw1008a
Subject Category
B.4.1.2  
Subject Name
IRAS 05437+2502
Credits
ESA/Hubble, R. Sahai and NASA
Release Date
2010-06-14T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1008a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, Pseudogreen (V+I), V
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
86.7160747372, 25.0615937976
Reference Dimension
2001.0, 1654.0
Reference Pixel
1000.0, 827.0
Scale
-1.38644670675e-05, 1.38644670675e-05
Rotation
92.939999999999884
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1008a
Metadata Date
2010-06-07T12:45:50+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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