Spitzer Spots Bubbles and Bow Shocks

This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust full of bubbles, which are inflated by wind and radiation from massive young stars. Each bubble is filled with hundreds to thousands of stars, which form from dense clouds of gas and dust. The bubbles are estimated to be 10 to 30 light-years across, based on what astronomers know about them and other cosmic bubbles. However, determining the exact sizes of individual bubbles can be difficult, because their distance from Earth is challenging to measure and objects appear smaller the farther away they are. Flows of particles called stellar winds emitted by the stars, as well as the pressure of the light those winds produce, can push the surrounding material outward, sometimes creating a distinct perimeter. In Figure 1, the yellow circles and ovals outline more than 30 bubbles. This active region of star formation is located inside the Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation Aquila (also known as the Eagle). Black veins running throughout the cloud are regions of especially dense cold dust and gas where even more new stars are likely to form. The colors in this image represent different wavelengths of

Date

2019-09-30

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

Need photos for a whole script? Add Find Any Photo to Claude and ask for this one by its id: 17159.