恒星孕育所里的摇篮（图）  

 

Cradles in a Stellar Nursery

AUSTIN, TEXAS—A stellar birth explosion is taking place in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy of our own Milky Way. The cold, dark clouds of dust that hatch the new stars are invisible at optical wavelengths, but they glow brightly in the infrared. This image, presented here today at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, combines observations of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory. Intricate ripples reveal regions where the dust is denser than average—the cradles in the nursery. While Spitzer sees dust at room temperature (blue and white), Herschel's cameras catch the longer-wavelength glow of much colder dust (red and green). The bright area left of center is the 30 Doradus cluster, which is home to some of the hottest and brightest stars known in the Universe.

德克萨斯州奥斯汀消息：在我们银河系小型伴星系——大麦哲伦星云中，群星正在急速诞生。尽管孕育新恒星的冷暗尘云在视觉波长上不可见，但在红外波长上却非常明亮。今天，这张图片被提交到美国天文学会在这里举行的第219次会议上。该图片结合了NASA斯必泽太空望远镜和欧洲航天局赫歇尔太空天文台的观察。繁杂的波痕所显示的是尘埃比较浓密的区域，即孕育所里的摇篮。斯必泽是在室温下观察尘埃的（见蓝色和白色部分），而赫歇尔的镜头捕捉到了波长更长的光，这是由冷得多的尘埃发出的（见红色和绿色部分）。中心左边最亮的区域是30剑鱼座星团，其中有着宇宙中一些最为炽热和明亮的恒星。

   

译自：美国《科学》杂志网站（10 January 2012, 3:52 PM）

原著：Govert Schilling