ESA Photo Release: Painting with Oxygen and Hydrogen
Ron Baalke
ESA Science News
http://www.esa.int
18 Oct 2001
Photo release: Painting with Oxygen and Hydrogen
A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope is an example of 'painting
with light'. Astronomers use the separated colours produced by oxygen
and hydrogen to investigate star-forming processes in the nebula NGC
2080. The colours explain much about the nature of such nebulae.
The colours from stars, nebulae and galaxies come to us in bold strokes
as if they had been painted by a renaissance master. But they are not
artistic adornment, they provide details into the scientific workings
of these objects.
This new picture taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
demonstrates how astronomers can 'paint with light'. Light emitted by
different chemical elements, and from elements at different temperatures
is separated by special narrow-band filters to reveal the nature of
complicated and violent star-formation processes.
The Hubble image shows the nebula NGC 2080, nicknamed the "Ghost Head
Nebula" by astronomers. It is one of a chain of star-forming regions
lying south of the 30 Doradus nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud that
have attracted special attention. These regions have been studied in
detail with Hubble and have long been identified as unique star-forming
sites. 30 Doradus is the largest star-forming complex not only in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, but also in the whole local group of galaxies.
The light from the nebula caught in this image is emitted by two
elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The red and blue light comes from regions
of hydrogen gas heated by nearby stars until it is fully ionised. The
green light of the filament shape on the left comes from doubly ionised
oxygen. The energy to illuminate the filament is supplied by a powerful
stellar wind coming from a massive star just outside the image. The
white region in the centre is a combination of all three emissions, and
indicates a core of hot, massive stars in this star formation region.
The intense emission from these stars has carved a bowl shaped cavity
in the surrounding gas.
Two bright regions (the 'eyes of the ghost'), named A1 (left) and A2
(right), are very hot, glowing 'blobs' of hydrogen and oxygen. The
bubble in A1 is produced by the hot, intense radiation and powerful
stellar wind from a single massive star. A2 has a more complex
appearance due to the presence of more dust, and it contains several
hidden, massive stars. The massive stars in A1 and A2 must have formed
within the last 10,000 years since their natal gas shrouds are not yet
disrupted by the powerful radiation of the newly born stars.
These results will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Astronomy
and Astrophysics journal, where the team behind the image describe
the processes taking place in NGC 2080. The research team noted that
Hubble's high resolution is essential in order to reveal the various
features in the nebula, and to better understand the formation of
massive stars in this interesting region.
This 'enhanced colour' picture is composed of three narrow-band filter
images obtained with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on 28 March
2000. The colours are red (ionised hydrogen, H-alpha, 1040 seconds),
green (ionised oxygen, 1200 seconds) and blue (ionised hydrogen, H-beta,
1040 seconds). The image spans 67 x 67 arc-seconds, corresponding to
55 x 55 light-years at the distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud
(168,000 light years).
Credit: ESA, NASA, & Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris,
France)
Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international co-operation
between ESA and NASA.
The scientists involved in these observations are M. Heydari-Malayeri
(Observatoire de Paris, France), V. Charmandaris (Cornell University,
U.S.A.), L. Deharveng (Observatoire de Marseille, France), F. Meynadier
(Observatoire de Paris, France), M.R. Rosa (ST-ECF, Germany), D.
Schaerer (Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees, France) and H. Zinnecker
(Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, Germany).
Contacts:
Lars Lindberg Christensen
Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre, Garching, Germany
Phone: +49-89-3200-6306 (089 in Germany)
Cellular (24 hr): +49-173-38-72-621 (0173 in Germany)
E-mail: la...@eso.org
Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri
Observatoire de Paris, France
Phone: +33-1-40-51-20-76
E-mail: hey...@obspm.fr
USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY
* News Release PDF
http://sci2.esa.int/hubble/docs/heic0114.pdf
* News Release Textfile
http://sci2.esa.int/hubble/docs/heic0114.txt
* Scientists' webpage about NGC 2080/N160A
http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/~heydari/projects/N160/
Painius
--
Indelibly yours, (fiat lux)
Painius
http://paine_ellsworth.home.att.net/
oxo
Ron Baalke <baa...@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:9qms2r$g5g$1...@nntp1.jpl.nasa.gov...