Supernova remnants, such as the Crab Nebula, are made from particles from blew up stars.
Over the years, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken numerous pictures of various type of amazing nebulae in our universe.
A nebula is a huge cloud of dust and gas in area. There are different kinds of nebulae, ranging from sites where stars are being born under gravitational pressures to broadening gaseous remnants thrown off by passing away stars.
Hubble Senior Project Scientist, Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, takes us on a tour of some of our universes most extraordinary Nebulae.
Video Transcript:
For many years, the Hubble Space Telescope has actually taken hundreds of images of different type of incredible nebulae in our universe.
A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. There are different kinds of nebulae, varying from sites where stars are being born under gravitational pressures to broadening gaseous remnants shaken off by dying stars.
The well-known Orion nebula is a star-forming region just 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest big star-forming area to Earth. Due to the fact that it is so bright and prominent, located simply below Orions belt, this nebula is one we can see with the unaided eye. It likewise offers an exceptional peek at excellent birth for those with telescopes.
This nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas where vast numbers of new stars are forged. Its brilliant, central region is the house of four huge, young stars that form the nebula.
Since they are set up in a trapezoidal pattern, these four hefty stars are called the Trapezium. Ultraviolet light released by these stars is sculpting a cavity in the nebula and interrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller sized stars.
This sensational Hubble image uses the sharpest view of the Orion Nebula ever obtained. Developed utilizing 520 various Hubble direct exposures taken in numerous wavelengths of light, this mosaic includes over one billion pixels. The images orange color represents hydrogen, green is oxygen, and red represents both sulfur and observations made in infrared light.
While the Orion Nebula is in the midst of creating new stars, other nebulae arise from aging and dying stars.
This image of the Cats Eye Nebula reveals a bulls eye pattern of eleven or perhaps more concentric rings. Each ring is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky– thats why it appears intense along its outer edge.
When a medium-sized star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year periods, observations suggest Cats Eye was produced. These convulsions developed dust shells that form a layered, concentric structure around the dying star.
The view from Hubble is like seeing an onion halve, where each skin layer appears as a ring. Each shell contains as much mass as all of the worlds in our solar system combined.
There are the supernova residues, like the Crab Nebula. These nebulae are made from particles from blew up stars.
In the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers tape-recorded a “guest star” that showed up even in the daytime sky for nearly a month. The “visitor star” they observed was actually the supernova surge that developed the Crab Nebula.
Today the Crab Nebula is still visible as a six-light-year-wide remnant of that violent event.
This large mosaic of the Crab Nebula was assembled from 24 individual direct exposures recorded by Hubble over three months. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mainly of hydrogen. Green is sulfur, and red suggests two times as ionized oxygen.
These components were expelled during the supernova explosion. The remaining, ultra-dense core of the exploded star remains as a quickly spinning neutron star in the center of the Crab Nebula. Electrons whirling at almost the speed of light around the stars electromagnetic field lines produce the spooky blue light in the interior of the nebula.
The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that make it appear to pulse 30 times per second as it rotates.
Nebulae are some of the most lovely objects in our universe. Their extraordinary shapes and colors will always influence mankind to keep looking up at the stars. And with instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, we will continue to be able to discover the numerous mysteries of deep space.
The popular Orion nebula is a star-forming area only 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest big star-forming region to Earth. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The leftover, ultra-dense core of the taken off star remains as a rapidly spinning neutron star in the center of the Crab Nebula. Electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around the stars magnetic field lines produce the eerie blue light in the interior of the nebula.
Their extraordinary shapes and colors will constantly inspire humanity to keep looking up at the stars.