Hubble
28. captures view
of ‘Mystic Mountain’
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape
from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This Hubble image, which is even more dramatic than fiction,
captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall, which is being
eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from
within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering
peaks.
This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula,
located 7500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. The image celebrates the
20th anniversary of Hubble’s launch and deployment into an orbit around the Earth.
Scorching radiation and fast winds (streams of charged particles) from super-hot newborn
stars in the nebula are shaping and compressing the pillar, causing new stars to form within it.
Streamers of hot ionised gas can be seen flowing off the ridges of the structure, and wispy veils
of gas and dust, illuminated by starlight, float around its towering peaks. The denser parts of the
pillar are resisting being eroded by radiation.
Nestled inside this dense mountain are fledgling stars. Long streamers of gas can be seen
shooting in opposite directions from the pedestal at the top of the image. Another pair of jets is
visible at another peak near the centre of the image. These jets, (known as HH 901 and HH 902,
respectively, are signposts for new star birth and are launched by swirling gas and dust discs
around the young stars, which allow material to slowly accrete onto the stellar surfaces.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar on 1-2 February 2010. The colours in this
composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green),
and sulphur (red).
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)
“I’m part of a generation of astronomers that grew up
surrounded by Hubble images, and I can safely say that
they were a big part of the reason why I became an
astronomer. Of course, having my college physics classes
across the street from the Space Telescope Science
Institute (ground zero for Hubble) didn’t hurt, either.”
— Dr. Heather Knutson
Assistant Professor of Planetary Science
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California