Hubble serves up a holiday snow angel
The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched “wings” of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope presents a festive holiday greeting that’s out of this world. The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched “wings” of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium.
Sharpless 2-106, Sh2-106 or S106 for short, lies nearly 2,000 light-years from us. The nebula measures several light-years in length. It appears in a relatively isolated region of the Milky Way galaxy.
A massive, young star, IRS 4 (Infrared Source 4), is responsible for the furious activity we see in the nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel.
A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape. Hubble’s sharp resolution reveals ripples and ridges in the gas as it interacts with the cooler interstellar medium.
Dusky red veins surround the blue emission from the nebula. The faint light emanating from the central star reflects off of tiny dust particles. This illuminates the environment around the star, showing darker filaments of dust winding beneath the blue lobes.
Detailed studies of the nebula have also uncovered several hundred brown dwarfs. At purely infrared wavelengths, more than 600 of these sub-stellar objects appear. These "failed" stars weigh less than a tenth of our Sun. Because of their low mass, they cannot produce energy through nuclear fusion like our Sun does. They encompass the nebula in a small cluster.
The Hubble images were taken in February 2011 with the Wide Field Camera 3. Visible narrow-band filters that isolate the hydrogen gas were combined with near-infrared filters that show structure in the cooler gas and dust.
Provided by
JPL/NASA
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Thanks for the story and the beautiful image.
Like so many other parts of the universe, this bipolar image appears to be something made by:
a.) Fragmentation - likely driven by neutron repulsion [1] in a universe that is expanding [2] - rather than by
b.) Condensation or accretion - driven by classical gravitational attraction.
What observations support b.) over a.)?
1. "Neutron Repulsion", The APEIRON Journal, in press (2011)
http://arxiv.org/...2.1499v1
2. "Is the Universe Expanding?", The Journal of Cosmology 13, 4187-4190 (2011)
http://journalofc...102.html
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
www.omatumr.com
http://myprofile....anuelo09
Dec 19, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Dec 19, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (4)
www.youtube.com/w...ld5PR4ts
Precise rest mass measurements on every atom show:
a.) Neutrons attract protons to make stable atoms
b.) Neutrons repel other neutrons; Neutron-rich atoms are unstable
c.) Protons repel protons even more strongly; Proton-rich atoms are less stable
d.) A benevolent Reality that surrounds and sustains us is in a "Cradle of the Nuclides"
www.amazon.com/Or...06465620
http://dl.dropbox..._Not.pdf
As the AGW scam collapses, my most immediate concern is that frightened leaders of formerly "Free West" nations may act foolishly to preserve their false illusion of control once the public begins to grasp that a pulsar actually gave birth to the Solar System and its elements and still controls our fate today.
http://dl.dropbox...asks.pdf
Dec 19, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (4)
http://adsabs.har...31...69B
Young solar-type stars:
a.) Rotate rapidly
b.) Are magnetically active
c.) Some have magnetic cycles like the 22-yr solar activity cycle
How does an interstellar cloud of H to collapse and perform these feats?
Could it be that young solar-type stars have a pulsar core, like the Sun?
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
-- James Ph. Kotsybar
The remnants of supernovae disperse
behemoth art, when stars annihilate.
Sombrero, Crab and Horseshead populate
the gallery of our known universe.
Theres Ant, Tarantula, and Pelican.
Theres Eagle and Pillars Of Creation,
and even one called Big Running Chicken.
One slightly resembles our great nation.
These interstellar Rorschach tests reveal
the shapes we recognize within our world,
like Hamburger, Butterfly and Pinwheel,
but they are the guts of stars that are hurled.
Each may have destroyed some sentient race,
but, Look! Its like a snow angel in space!