#NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery

[michaelgabrill]

[apod]

2024 November 28

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda Image Credit & Copyright: Roberto Marinoni

Explanation: The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found at the center of this sharp and detailed close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241128.html

[livingforstars]

NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery in M33 - August 16th, 1996.

"The nebula cataloged as NGC 604 is a giant star forming region, 1500 light years across, in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. Seen here in a snapshot by the Hubble Space Telescope, over 200 newly formed, hot, massive stars are scattered within a cavern-like, gaseous, interstellar cloud. The stars irradiate the gas with energetic ultraviolet light, stripping electrons from atoms and exciting them - producing a characteristic nebular glow. The details of the nebula's structure hold clues to the mysteries of star formation and its effect on the evolution of galaxies."

[misspepita]

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda via NASA https://ift.tt/4un1G2V

The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found right of center in this sharp and detailed close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

[nlockett]

APOD: NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda (4/12/23) The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found right of center in this sharp and detailed close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. © Howard Trottier

[thetimeandspaceblog]

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda

The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of neighboring spiral galaxy Andromeda (M31), 2.5 million light-years distant. Seen near the center ofthis gorgeous close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk, the bright, blue stars of NGC 206indicate its youth. Its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy known as open or galactic clusters,NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Image Credit & Copyright: Bob and Janice Fera (Fera Photography)

Time And Space

[just--space]

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda: The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is near top center in this gorgeous close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromedas disk, a remarkable composite of data from space and ground-based observatories. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. Thats comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Star forming sites within Andromeda are revealed by the telltale reddish emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen gas. via NASA

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[rjbailey]

NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary: NGC 604 by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Via Flickr: On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory. In the two decades that have passed, Chandra’s powerful and unique X-ray eyes have contributed to a revolution in our understanding of the cosmos. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is commemorating its 20th anniversary with an assembly of new images. These images represent the breadth of Chandra’s exploration, demonstrating the variety of objects it studies as well as how X-rays complement the data collected in other types of light. The nearby galaxy Messier 33 contains a star-forming region called NGC 604 where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside. The cool dust and warmer gas in this stellar nursery appear as the wispy structures in an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. In between these filaments are giant voids that are filled with hot, X-ray-emitting gas. Astronomers think these bubbles are being blown off the surfaces of the young and massive stars throughout NGC 604. NGC 604 also likely contains an extreme member of the class of colliding-wind binaries, as reported in a recent paper. It is the first candidate source in this class to be discovered in M33 and the most distant example known, and shares several properties with the famous, volatile system called Eta Carinae, located in our galaxy. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Tuellmann et al.; Optical: NASA/AURA/STScI/J. Schmidt Read more More about the Chandra X-ray Observatory NASA Media Usage Guidelines

[nishantwap]

Scientists say they've found an alien asteroid near Jupiter

New Post has been published on https://www.hsnews.us/scientists-say-theyve-found-an-alien-asteroid-near-jupiter/

Scientists say they've found an alien asteroid near Jupiter

When an asteroid from outside our solar system was observed zipping through for the first time last year, it caused a lot of excitement. Now, a new study suggests another interstellar asteroid has actually been hiding here all this time.

This alien asteroid — named 2015 BZ509 — formed in another star system, but is now a permanent resident of our solar system, and it has been since our solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, says the study published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

The unusual asteroid — estimated to be about three kilometres in diameter — was actually discovered three years ago with the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at the University of Hawaii. The telescope is specifically designed to hunt for asteroids, especially those that could pose a threat to Earth.

At the time, Canadian astronomer Paul Wiegert and his team observed two very strange things about the asteroid’s behaviour:

It drives the ��wrong” way through our solar system: orbiting in the opposite direction compared to all the planets and 99.99 per cent of other asteroids in our system.

It travels in Jupiter’s orbit at the same speed as Jupiter. Because it’s doing that while travelling in the opposite direction to Jupiter, you might think it risks smashing into Jupiter twice, on each loop it makes around the sun. But it in fact weaves in and out of Jupiter’s path, so that never happens.

Wiegert, an astronomer at Western University in London, Ont., and his team calculated that the asteroid will continue to safely meet and miss Jupiter repeatedly for at least the next one million years.

But they didn’t then know how the asteroid ended up in that weird orbit.

This is an image of stellar nursery NGC 604. When the sun formed, it was part of a star cluster like this, and could have more easily exchanged asteroids with nearby stars. (NASA / Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI))

In this new study, Fathi Namouni, of l’Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France, and Helena Morais, at the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Brazil, offer an explanation for the asteroid’s odd behaviour: It’s not from around here.

To determine what might have put the asteroid into its current orbit, Namouni and Morais simulated and extrapolated the asteroid’s path back to the beginning of the solar system.

They looked at a million possibilities to account for the fact the asteroid’s current orbit isn’t known with exact precision, knowing only some of those possibilities would reflect the object’s true orbit and therefore provide a real, observable path.

The results that could be traced the furthest back showed the asteroid’s orbit hasn’t changed in all those 4.5 billion years.

“This was actually a big surprise,” Morais told CBC News.

That’s because it’s thought everything was moving in the same direction — or opposite to the direction the asteroid is travelling — when our solar system formed.

At that time, planets and asteroids were coalescing from a rotating disk of gas and dust left over from the formation of the sun; they ended up orbiting in the same direction the disk was rotating.

In other words, objects with wrong-way or “retrograde” orbits didn’t exist in our solar system at that time, said Morais.

“So they have to come from the outside.”

Trading rocks

‘Oumuamua, the interstellar asteroid spotted passing through our solar system last year, was going too fast to be captured by the gravity of the planets. But an object with a slower velocity could still conceivably be pulled into the orbit of a giant planet like Jupiter when passing by.

And billions of years ago, the sun was part of a cluster of stars, Morais said.

“There were close-by stars — closer than they are today,” she said, making it easier for these stars to exchange objects.

Morais thinks looking out for strange orbits may help scientists identify other alien asteroids hiding in our solar system. “We believe others are there at the moment,” she said. “The question is to figure out which ones.”

‘Oumuamua — the interstellar asteroid spotted passing through our solar system last year, and pictured in this artist’s impression — was going too fast to be captured by the gravity of the planets. But an object with a slower velocity could conceivably be pulled into the orbit of a giant planet like Jupiter. (M. Kornmesser/ESO)

At the moment, scientists don’t know what 2015 BZ509 is made of, Morais said. But if scientists are able to study the composition of other objects like it, they may be able to learn more about where those objects came from.

Martin Connors, a physicist at Athabasca University who originally worked with Wiegert to describe the asteroid’s orbit, said their team hadn’t considered at the time the possibility it may be from another stellar system. Nor did they have the computing power to extrapolate so many possibilities for the object’s path, going back 4.5 billion years.

“They did a massive study, that’s for sure,” he said.

But while Connors said he thinks the methodology was “great,” he doesn’t totally agree with the conclusion that the asteroid came from another stellar system, as only a few possible paths show the orbit being stable from the beginning of the solar system.

Still, the possibility of the asteroid coming from another star is interesting, he said.

“I think the most important implication is this opens our eyes to a new thing to look at.”

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[apod]

2024 April 25

NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Explanation: Located some 3 million light-years away in the arms of nearby spiral galaxy M33, giant stellar nursery NGC 604 is about 1,300 light-years across. That's nearly 100 times the size of the Milky Way's Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region to planet Earth. In fact, among the star forming regions within the Local Group of galaxies, NGC 604 is second in size only to 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Cavernous bubbles and cavities in NGC 604 fill this stunning infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam. They are carved out by energetic stellar winds from the region's more than 200 hot, massive, young stars, all still in early stages of their lives.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240425.html

[apod]

2023 April 12

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda Image Credit & Copyright: Howard Trottier

Explanation: The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found right of center in this sharp and detailed close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230412.html

[nlockett]

APOD: NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda (4/12/23) The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is found right of center in this sharp and detailed close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. © Howard Trottier

[just--space]

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda: The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is near top center in this gorgeous close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromedas disk, a remarkable composite of data from space and ground-based observatories. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. Thats comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Star forming sites within Andromeda are revealed by the telltale reddish emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen gas. via NASA

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