Comments on: Cold fire threads Orion's Belt

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Sat, 05 May 2012 17:04:29 +0000

@7, Steve: that would be awesome.

Imagine each morning sitting at a desk that has this nebulae-formation on top of it…

*snort* *giggle*

Seriously, I don’t understand why this image is “spectacular”. We can’t see in the infrared so this isn’t spectacular. It’s basically a painting. If you use pink as the color that represents infrared, it would look ridiculous. Just because the researchers chose orange/yellow it’s considered “spectacular”? I don’t think so. I think it’s beautiful, yes, but just last month the BA posted that sideways look on the milky-way spanning 200 megapixels or whatever it was.

So you better watch your superlatives

By: Bill DeVoe

Bill DeVoe — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:50:55 +0000

The (slightly) warmed dust reminds me of a mantis. Pareidolia at its best!

By: Bill DeVoe

Bill DeVoe — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:38:38 +0000

The (slightly) warmed dust reminds of me a mantis. Pareidolia at its best!

By: Steve Metzler

Steve Metzler — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:36:40 +0000

@Andrew (#4):

I see you’re not the only former class clown that hangs out here.

But srsly, though it is a composite, that is one of the most spectacular images the BA has ever posted here. I’m going straightaway to get the large image, and turn part of it into a desktop.

By: Jim Moore

Jim Moore — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:03:01 +0000

Why are stars forming like pearls on a string in these rivers of dust?

Does this shed any light on how stars form?

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:26:58 +0000

@#1 Pete Jackson,

I noticed while reading the ESO press release at the site that APEX submillimeter observations only includes a portion of this image, not the entire field, as seen here: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/screen/eso1219c.jpg

That said, some areas still appear dark at both submillimeter and visible wavelengths. Must be quite cold there.

By: Andrew Cseplo

Andrew Cseplo — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:46:40 +0000

@ Eric: Looks to be a couple of inches.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:29:09 +0000

I always wonder how big nebulae are. How far apart are the top left edge and bottom right edge of this cloud?

By: Pete Jackson

Pete Jackson — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:59:04 +0000

Great images! I notice that there are still significant dark areas around the visible nebulosity where no stars are showing, indicating that there is cold dust there, but are also not showing on the APEX image as well. I downloaded the combined image and cranked up the gamma on Microsoft Photo Editor to see if there were any enhancements in those areas above the sky background, and there were still some totally dark areas. I don’t know what is APEX’s sensitivity to very cold dust, but these superdark areas may represent dust cooled down to just a few Kelvins above absolute zero, i.e. down close to the 3 K temperature of the cosmic microwave background.

By: Junior

Junior — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:51:35 +0000

Speaking of wavelengths, as a kid I often tried to imagine what would the world look like if we had “radio-wavelength” goggles. I imagine the walls and people to be semitransparent and the far beacons of radio-station towers glowing fiercely in the distance. That would be an interesting gadget to build.