Echo
79.from
mysterious
erupting star
(Dec. 2002 image)
This is the first in a sequence of four
pictures from the NASA/ESA Hubble
Space Telescope’s Advanced
Camera for Surveys that dramatically
demonstrates the echoing of light
through space caused by an unusual
stellar outburst in January 2002.
The image was taken 17 December
2002. The image is combined from
exposures taken through blue (B),
green (V), and infrared (I) filters.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency,
and H.E. Bond (STScI)
Thackeray’s
80.
Globules
Strangely glowing dark clouds float serenely in this
remarkable and beautiful image. These dense,
opaque dust clouds - known as ‘globules’ - are
silhouetted against nearby bright stars in the busy
star-forming region, IC 2944.
Astronomer A.D. Thackeray first spied the globules
in IC 2944 in 1950. Globules like these have been
known since Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok
first drew attention to such objects in 1947.
But astronomers still know very little about their
origin and nature, except that they are generally
associated with areas of star formation, called ‘HII
regions’ due to the presence of hydrogen gas. IC
2944 is filled with gas and dust that is illuminated
and heated by a loose cluster of massive stars
much hotter and more massive than our Sun.
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team
STScI/AURA)