Infant Stars Peek Out from Dusty Cradles

Nhsc_nhsc2013-009a_1024

nhsc_nhsc2013-009a March 19th, 2013

Credit: NASA/ESA/ESO/JPL-Caltech/A. Stutz (Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg)

Astronomers have found some of the youngest stars ever seen thanks to the Herschel space observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. Dense envelopes of gas and dust surround the fledging stars known as protostars, making their detection difficult until now. The discovery gives scientists a window into the earliest and least understood phases of star formation.

The new results come from the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey (HOPS), led by the University of Toledo. HOPS has looked at the vast stellar nursery in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, the biggest site of star formation near our solar system, located in the constellation of Orion.

A portion of the survey is shown here in two side-by-side images of the same region around the nebula Messier 78 where several of 15 new protostars were found. Herschel detected the extremely young protostars -- indicated in the image by the four circles -- that were too cold to be picked up in previous scans of the area by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Radio wave observations from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile, a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, the Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden and the European Southern Observatory in Germany, further confirmed the newfound protostars' presence.

On the left the nebula Messier 78 is shown in a three-color composite from the three telescopes just mentioned. In green is the 160-micron, far-infrared light collected by Herschel's Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS). Appearing in blue is 24-micron light from Spitzer. Finally, 870-micron radio wave light gathered by APEX glows red.

On the right the same region appears in a separate three-color composite that shows infrared observations from two instruments aboard NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Blue represents 3.6- and 4.5-micron light and green shows light of 5.8 and 8 microns, both captured by Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). Red is 24-micron light detected by Spitzer's Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS).

Provider: Herschel Space Observatory

Image Source: https://www.herschel.caltech.edu/image/nhsc2013-009a

Curator: NASA Herschel Science Center, Pasadena, CA, USA

Image Use Policy: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/imagepolicy/

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Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 78 M78 NGC 2068
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Star Formation
Star > Evolutionary Stage > Protostar

Distance

Universescale1
1,600 light years

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Spitzer (MIPS) Infrared 24.0 µm
Green Herschel (PACS) Infrared 160.0 µm
Red APEX Millimeter 870.0 µm
Blue Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 3.6 µm
Blue Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 4.5 µm
Green Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 5.8 µm
Green Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 8.0 µm
Red Spitzer (MIPS) Infrared 24.0 µm
Spectrum_ir1
Blue
Green
Red
Blue
Blue
Green
Green
Red
Nhsc_nhsc2013-009a_1280
×
ID
nhsc2013-009a
Subject Category
B.4.1.2   B.3.1.1  
Subject Name
Messier 78, M78, NGC 2068
Credits
NASA/ESA/ESO/JPL-Caltech/A. Stutz (Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg)
Release Date
2013-03-19
Lightyears
1,600
Redshift
1,600
Reference Url
https://www.herschel.caltech.edu/image/nhsc2013-009a
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Good
Distance Notes
Facility
Spitzer, Herschel, APEX, Spitzer, Spitzer, Spitzer, Spitzer, Spitzer
Instrument
MIPS, PACS, -, IRAC, IRAC, IRAC, IRAC, MIPS
Color Assignment
Blue, Green, Red, Blue, Blue, Green, Green, Red
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Millimeter, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
24000, 160000, 870000, 3600, 4500, 5800, 8000, 24000
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
Equinox
Reference Value
Reference Dimension
Reference Pixel
Scale
Rotation
Coordinate System Projection:
Quality
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
NASA Herschel Science Center
URL
http://www.herschel.caltech.edu/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
1200 E. California Blvd.
City
Pasadena
State/Province
CA
Postal Code
91125
Country
USA
Rights
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/imagepolicy/
Publisher
NASA Herschel Science Center
Publisher ID
nhsc
Resource ID
Metadata Date
2018-06-21T00:22:02Z
Metadata Version
1.2
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×
Universescalefull
1,600 light years

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