This graphical representation from the SOFIA Science
Center compares two infrared images of the heart of the Orion nebula captured by
the FORCAST camera on the SOFIA airborne observatory's telescope with a wider
image of the same area from the Spitzer space telescope. (SOFIA image - James De
Buizer / NASA / DLR / USRA / DSI / FORCAST; Spitzer image - NASA/JPL)
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - A new image from NASA's
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) shows a complex
distribution of interstellar dust and stars in the Orion nebula. Interstellar
dust, composed mostly of silicon, carbon and other heavy elements that
astronomers refer to generically as "metals," plus some ice and organic
molecules, is part of the raw material from which new stars and planets are
forming.
The two insets display mid-infrared images showing portions of
the Orion nebula star-forming region, also known as Messier 42 (M42). The SOFIA
images were produced by SOFIA staff scientist James De Buizer and his
collaborators from data obtained in May - June 2011 during the SOFIA's Basic
Science program. The observations were made using the Faint Object Infrared
Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) instrument, led by principal
investigator Terry Herter of Cornell University. Those observations are subjects
of scientific papers to be submitted to The Astrophysical Journal.
The
SOFIA's large telescope is able to resolve many individual protostars and young
stars as well as knots of dust and gas that could be starting the process of
gravitational contraction to become stars. The massive protostar known famously
as the BN (Becklin-Neugebauer) Object stands out as the individual blue source
in the red inset box. The BN/KL region of Orion gets its name from the initials
of pioneering infrared astronomers Eric Becklin, Gerry Neugebauer, Doug
Kleinmann and Frank Low who mapped it in the late 1960s and early 1970s, using
some of the first astronomical infrared detectors. In this image, infrared light
with wavelengths of 20, 31, and 37 microns, symbolized respectively by blue,
green and red, is seen coming from relatively cool interstellar dust with
temperatures of approximately 100 - 200 kelvins.
The SOFIA image in the
blue inset box shows the Ney-Allen Nebula, a region of intense infrared emission
that was discovered surrounding the luminous Trapezium stars by astronomers Ed
Ney and David Allen. Some of the compact features shown here are disks of dust
and gas around young solar-mass stars that could be planetary systems in the
process of formation. In this image, blue, green and red respectively symbolize
infrared light with wavelengths of 8, 20, and 37 microns, coming from material
as warm as 500 kelvins (450 F).
The large background image is a composite
of data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in which light with wavelengths of 7.9,
4.5, and 3.6 microns (represented respectively by red, green and blue) is
emitted from hot dust and gas heated by embedded stars, and from the stars
themselves. The BN/KL region is so bright as to be over-exposed in the Spitzer
image.
The two SOFIA images were made at combinations of wavelengths and
angular resolutions unavailable to any other observatory on the ground or in
space. The SOFIA and Spitzer images of Orion together provide a comprehensive
view of stages of star formation from cold interstellar clouds to fully-fledged
stars.
The SOFIA airborne observatory incorporates a 17-ton reflecting
telescope with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters (100 inches) mounted inside
an extensively modified Boeing 747SP. The SOFIA aircraft flies at altitudes as
high as 45,000 feet (14 km), above more than 99 percent of the water vapor in
Earth's atmosphere that blocks most infrared radiation from celestial
sources.
The SOFIA is a joint program of NASA and the German Aerospace
Center (DLR), and is based and managed at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations
Facility in Palmdale, Calif. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field,
Calif., manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the
Universities Space Research Association (USRA), headquartered in Columbia, Md.,
and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart.
For
more information about the SOFIA, visit:
For information about SOFIA's science mission, visit:
and
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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