In the Dark

Every now and again I remember that I should  pretend that this is an astronomy blog. A new press release from the European Space Agency just reminded me again, by unveiling a wonderful new Herschel image of part of the Rosette Nebula:

This isn’t really one for the cosmologists as it concerns a star-forming region in our own Galaxy. Herschel collects the infrared light given out by cool dust; this image is a three-colour composite made of wavelengths at 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red). It was made with observations from Herschel’s Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) and the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE). The bright smudges are dusty cocoons containing massive protostars. The small spots near the centre of the image are lower mass protostars.

This is a wonderful demonstration of how Herschel is able to see massive objects – probably about ten times the mass of the Sun – previously hidden from view within the nebular dust. Studies such as this will help astronomers understand much better the processes by which stars form in regions such as this.

PS. If you want to know why this is called the Rosette Nebula, you need to see what the whole thing looks like in optical light:

This entry was posted on April 13, 2010 at 12:25 am and is filed under The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, ESA, Herschel, protostars, Rosette Nebula, star formation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.