afesan Posted November 29, 2014 Report Share Posted November 29, 2014 This is Barnard 3, a dusty, gassy region of the galaxy about a thousand light years away where young stars are lighting up their neighborhood.Complex molecules similar to soot, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs. . So what’s going on here? Near the center is a F2 white-yellow star ( HD 278942) which is brighter and hotter than our Sun, and is flooding the surrounding material with ultraviolet light and a fast wind of subatomic particles (like the Sun’s solar wind, but a whole lot stronger and with a much, much farther reach). This has carved out a gigantic cavity in that stuff, creating a bubble about 25 light years in diameter — that’s huge: 250,000,000,000,000 kilometers across, more than 10,000 times the size of our solar system! The UV from the star is making the gas glow.In optical light (this object is a mess , with gas emitting light, reflecting light, and dust absorbing it. When gas is lit up this way around a star, it’s called a Strömgren sphere, after the astronomer Bengt Strömgren who did the first theoretical work on them. An infrared image of the area can be seen here:http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/gallery_Barnard3.html Credit: (Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, December 2011) Link to more info and high resolution image: http://afesan.es/Deepspace/slides/Barnard%203%20%28Perseus%29.html CS ¡ Antonio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkS Posted November 29, 2014 Report Share Posted November 29, 2014 Very nice, Antonio! Interesting image- the more so because it is really out of reach from here. Regards, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afesan Posted December 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Thanks Mark ¡.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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