File:Sunset in Mordor.jpg
Sunset_in_Mordor.jpg (677 × 592 pixels, file size: 163 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
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Summary
DescriptionSunset in Mordor.jpg |
English: Don’t be fooled by the title; the mysterious, almost mystical bright light emerging from these thick, ominous clouds is actually a telltale sign of star formation. Here, a very young star is being born in the guts of the dark cloud LDN 43 — a massive blob of gas, dust, and ices, gathered 520 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer).
Stars are born from cosmic dust and gas, which floats freely in space until gravity forces it to bind together. The hidden newborn star in this image, revealed only by light reflected onto the plumes of the dark cloud, is named RNO 91. It is what astronomers call a pre-main sequence star, meaning that it has not yet started burning hydrogen in its core. The energy that allows RNO 91 to shine comes from gravitational contraction. The star is being compressed by its own weight until, at some point, a critical mass will be reached and hydrogen, its main component, will begin to fuse together, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process. This will mark the beginning of adulthood for the star. But even before this happens the adolescent star is bright enough to shine and generate powerful stellar winds, emitting intense X-ray and radio emission. RNO 91 is a variable star around half the mass of the Sun. Astronomers have been able to observe the existence of a dusty, icy disc surrounding it, stretching out to over 1700 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. It is believed that this disc may host protoplanets — planets in the process of being formed — and will eventually evolve into a fully-fledged planetary system. This image is based on data gathered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt. |
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Source | http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1331a/ |
Author |
ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt |
Licensing
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use. The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag. |
Items portrayed in this file
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5 August 2013
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Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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current | 02:01, 9 August 2013 | 677 × 592 (163 KB) | Jmencisom | User created page with UploadWizard |
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Metadata
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Credit/Provider | ESA/Hubble & NASAAcknowledgement: Judy Schmidt |
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Source | ESA/Hubble |
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Date and time of data generation | 10:00, 5 August 2013 |
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Contact information |
http://www.spacetelescope.org/ Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 Garching bei München, , D-85748 Germany |