ALMA observes the birth of a monster star
eso_eso1331a July 10th, 2013
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NRAJ/NRAO)/NASA/Spitzer/JPL-Caltech/GLIMPSE
Observations of the dark cloud SDC 335.579-0.292 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter array (ALMA) have given astronomers the best view yet of a monster star in the process of forming. A stellar womb with over 500 times the mass than the Sun has been found and appears as the yellow blob near the centre of this picture. This is the largest ever seen in the Milky Way — and it is still growing. The embryonic star within is hungrily feeding on the material that is racing inwards. It is expected to give birth to a very brilliant star with up to 100 times the mass of the Sun. This image combines data from ALMA and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1331a/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Full Size Image
(1225 x 874)
Source TIFF (1.38 MB)
- Additional Sizes (JPG)
- 320 x 228 (46.1 KB)
- 1024 x 730 (147 KB)
- 500 x 356 (68 KB)
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- eso1331a
- Subject Category
- B.4.1.2
- Subject Name
- SDC 335.579-0.292
- Credits
- ALMA (ESO/NRAJ/NRAO)/NASA/Spitzer/JPL-Caltech/GLIMPSE
- Release Date
- 2013-07-10T12:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1331a/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Spitzer Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
- Instrument
- IRAC (Spitzer), IRAC (Spitzer), IRAC (Spitzer), None
- Color Assignment
- Blue, Red, Green, Red
- Band
- Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Millimeter
- Bandpass
- Channel 1, Channel 4, Channel 2, Band 3
- Central Wavelength
- 3600, 8000, 4500, 3200000
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 247.755951702, -48.7091607988
- Reference Dimension
- 1225.0, 874.0
- Reference Pixel
- 627.089539855, 702.86985091
- Scale
- -8.3561236384e-05, 8.3561236384e-05
- Rotation
- -21.932276502990021
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- European Southern Observatory
- URL
- http://www.eso.org/
- Name
- 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
- European Southern Observatory
- Publisher ID
- eso
- Resource ID
- eso1331a
- Resource URL
- https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso1331a.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2013-07-05T17:41:55+02:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
