Comments on: The cold, thin, glorious line of star birth

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 06:40:21 +0000

I’m curious and it’s not yet been answered, once stellar “ignition” occurs and heat finally is expressed toward the surface of the protostar, making it a main sequence star, should there not be a shockwave of thermal impulse visible that would impact the nebula?

By: JMW

JMW — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:21:39 +0000

@10 Minos…

You cannot pass!

By: Victor Bogado

Victor Bogado — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:59:25 +0000

@Boris

I would suggest two explanations for this, the first one is that images made from non-visible light are always made by humans to enhance the details and make “stuff” more clear to the viewer. In other therms they are constructed from data and while are you constructing something you may as well make it beautiful. If you like to follow the visualization field of computer graphics you can see many beautiful images and movies (all made from data).

Another possibility is that we are not used to see the stuff, so even if there is only minor adjustments, like for instance a long exposition of the sky, it shows us something that we are not used to see, so it amazes us.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:33:14 +0000

BTW. Polaris itself :

http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/polaris.html

is a celestial beacon – a low-amplitude Cepheid variable that has been behaving very unusually :

http://www.universetoday.com/15831/polaris-brightness-variations-are-revived-astronomers-mystified/

to the point where it has almost stopped pulsating completely.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:25:54 +0000

So.. what makes the streamers? Is the nebula moving to the left? Relative to what? Is there something massive off to the right pulling matter off the nebula? Something very bright off to the left exerting light pressure? I’m very curious!

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:58:26 +0000

These filaments are all over the sky; the image here from Herschel is actually of a region on the sky near the star Polaris.

Is that “near Polaris” in apparent terms – ie. as seen in Earth’s skies?

Or is that “near Polaris” in the geography of our galaxy – ie. physically near Alpha Ursae Minoris (a.k.a. the Pole star, the North star, Polaris) in space itself?

Does anyone know and care to enlighten us all, please?

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:35:20 +0000

@10. Minos Says:

I’m getting some great pareidolia from that image. My brain is stuck seeing it as a demon shooting a fireball from outstretched hand.

Pareidolia~wise I can see a demonic face in the lower image – an upside down pyramid with horns, mask like and with either a long nose or an outstretched tongue. Plus a screaming moai (easter island face statute) thing in the top right hand corner!

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:25:08 +0000

Superb pyschedelic images. Excellent fascinating science.

Great closing paragraph :

The Universe is a lesson in superlatives, from thin to dense, from huge to huger, from chillingly cold to searingly hot. And, as usual, the beauty of the images themselves is rivaled by the beauty of the science and knowledge we derive from them.

^ This! ^ Spot on.

Thanks Herschel team and BA.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:11:57 +0000

@Minos: Oh, now I see it! Badass(tronomy)!

The thing I don’t quite grok is how there can be turbulence in such rarefied gas. How can there be low-pressure areas in the center of vortices, for instance, in something so close to a vacuum?

By: Minos

Minos — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:34:47 +0000

I’m getting some great pareidolia from that image. My brain is stuck seeing it as a demon shooting a fireball from outstretched hand.

By: Keith Bowden

Keith Bowden — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:10:55 +0000

@daninthai
500/.7=714.286
714>700

By: Jim Shaver

Jim Shaver — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:07:03 +0000

Boris, don’t you mean the gas is greener on the other side?

By: MRNUTTY

MRNUTTY — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:01:27 +0000

I love Astronomy, and this site is a great portal to some of the the BEST! However, being color blind; I wish red and green wasn’t used to prolifically. I can’t discern these red filaments from the rest

By: Larian LeQuella

Larian LeQuella — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:41:47 +0000

Toasterhead, I had the same brief confusion.

By: toasterhead

toasterhead — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:09:51 +0000

I’m a bit confused by the “green is 250 microns, and red 500 microns” bit in your post. Visible light is usually measured in nanometers, isn’t it? 250 microns would be a wavelength of 250,000 nm, which puts it in the far infrared. Or do you mean that the green and red colors in the image translate to 250,000 nm and 500,000 nm far infrared wavelengths?

Edit: Ok, I got it. You were talking about the false colors in the image, not the actual wavelengths for red and green and blue. Just took me a while…

By: daninthai

daninthai — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:48:34 +0000

” in this image blue shows gas and dust emitting at a wavelength of 70 microns (the reddest color the human eye can see is roughly 0.7 microns), green is 250 microns, and red 500 microns — that’s over 700 times the longest wavelength light the eye can detect.”

Is it just me or are the numbers off?

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:23:54 +0000

Boris- thanks, it’s fixed.

By: Anchor

Anchor — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:52:08 +0000

This is positively magnificent! I’ve spied the Cocoon (IC5146) and its peculiarly ‘starless’ tail often over the last 40 years through telescopes up to 20-inch aperture…and this Herschel image beautifully crystalizes what I could only imagine being there. Thanks for posting it Phil! Wonderful!

By: Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:51:39 +0000

Heya Phil, the link to the visible light image doesn’t work. It’s funny how images that are made from wavelengths the human eye can’t see are usually fantastically lovely. The grass is greener on the other side I guess!