Carina Nebula Image: Spitzer Space Telescope 10 years old

The Carina Nebula. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The infrared observatory Spitzer has been at work for 10 years, revealing the cool dusty regions where stars and planets form, as well as shedding light on planets, exoplanets, stars and galaxies.

Spitzer data have brought a better understanding of the Milky Way's spiral arm structure, led to the discovery of Saturn's largest and faintest ring, and the observatory was the first to detect light from an exoplanet.

Spitzer has enabled astronomers to investigate the composition, dynamics and atmospheres of exoplanets.

This image shows the Carina Nebula, a region where dust and gas are shaped by winds and radiation from the massive star Eta Carinae (100 times the mass of the Sun).

Infrared wavelength radiation from the star destroys dust, leaving cavities within the nebula surrounded by higher density "spikes".

This Spitzer image, reprocessed as part of the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) project, uses Spitzer's infrared array camera, with emission from wavelengths of 3.6 µm shown in blue, 4.5 µm in green and 8.0 µm in red. In the composite image, the dust appears red and the hotter gas, green.

Spitzer was originally called the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, and was renamed after its launch in honour of the late astronomer Lyman Spitzer.

It is one of NASA's Great Observatories, together with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the now-defunct Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.

Spitzer used up its coolant for longer-wavelength observations in 2009, and is now continuing to work in the "warm mission phase".

This image is published in the October 2013 issue of Astronomy & Geophysics.

NASA's Spitzer Image Carina Nebula: Brighter Than a Thousand Thousand Suns

This new view shows the Carina nebula as seen in a new image made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. 

At the center of the nebula lies Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars in the galaxy. 

Its blinding glare sculpts and destroys the surrounding nebula.

Eta Carinae represents a true giant of a star. 

It contains 100 times the mass of our sun, and burns its nuclear fuel so quickly that it blazes at least one million times brighter than the sun. 

It has brightened and faded over the years, and some astronomers think it could explode as a supernova in the not-too-distant future.

APEX Telescope: The Cool Clouds of the Carina Nebula

Observations made with the APEX telescope in submillimetre-wavelength light at a wavelength of 870 µm reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. 

This site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy, is an ideal arena in which to study the interactions between these young stars and their parent molecular clouds.

The APEX observations, made with its LABOCA camera, are shown here in orange tones, combined with a visible light image from the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. 

The result is a dramatic, wide-field picture that provides a spectacular view of Carina’s star formation sites. 

The nebula contains stars equivalent to over 25 000 Suns, and the total mass of gas and dust clouds is that of about 140 000 Suns.

Credit: ESO/APEX/T. Preibisch et al. (Submillimetre); N. Smith, University of Minnesota/NOAO/AURA/NSF (Optical)

ESA Hubble Image: Carina Nebula

In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras.

It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place.

Hubble's view of the nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno.

In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.

The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun.

The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.

The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen.

Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are nodules of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away by photoionization.

The hurricane blast of stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation within the cavity is now compressing the surrounding walls of cold hydrogen.

This is triggering a second stage of new star formation. Our Sun and our solar system may have been born inside such a cosmic crucible 4.6 billion years ago.

In looking at the Carina Nebula we are seeing the genesis of star making as it commonly occurs along the dense spiral arms of a galaxy. The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina the Keel (of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, from Greek mythology).

This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen. Color information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.

Image: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

ESA Herschel: The delicate balance of star formation in the Carina Nebula

A new image from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory reveals the glowing clouds of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula complex, one of the most massive stellar nurseries in the Milky Way.

The image provides a new view on this star-forming region at far-infrared wavelengths, disclosing the intricate structure of filaments, pillars and bubbles that pervades it.

Carved by winds and highly energetic radiation from massive stars, these features recount the history of star formation in the nebula: a result of the delicate balance between stellar feedback effects that may either halt or trigger the production of new generations of stars.

A site of intense star formation, the Carina Nebula complex is home to some of the brightest and most massive stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The intricate network of clouds that populate this prolific cosmic nursery, where tens of thousands of new stars are forming, is revealed in unprecedented detail in a new image obtained with ESA's Herschel Space Observatory.

Observing the sky at far-infrared wavelengths, Herschel enables us to see the glow of cold material, such as the mixture of gas and dust that pervade the Carina Nebula complex. The image combines data acquired with the PACS instrument at 70 micron (shown in blue) and 160 micron (shown in green) and with the SPIRE instrument at 250 micron (shown in red).

As seen in the image, the complex exhibits a rich assortment of bubbles, filaments and pillars, and the various regions of the nebula span a wide range in densities, from diffuse and loosely bound areas to more compact concentrations of matter. Partly responsible for creating this tangled structure are the numerous high-mass stars hosted within this star-forming region - in the central region alone, the Carina Nebula boasts a census of more than a hundred very massive stars of type O, B and Wolf-Rayet.

These include the famous Eta Carinae, a Luminous Blue Variable star with a mass over 100 times that of the Sun; this highly unstable star gives rise to frequent and violent outbursts and is expected to explode as a supernova in the next few hundred thousand years.

Echoes from Carinae's great eruption

During the mid 1800's, the well known star η Carinae underwent an enormous eruption becoming for a time, the second brightest star in the sky.

Although astronomers at the time did not yet have the technology to study one of the largest eruptions in recent history in depth, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute recently discovered that light echoes are just now reaching us.

This discovery allows astronomers to use modern instruments to study η Carinae as it was between 1838 and 1858 when it underwent its Great Eruption.

Light echoes have been made famous in recent years by the dramatic example of V838 Monocerotis.

While V838 Mon looks like an expanding shell of gas, what is actually depicted is light reflecting off shells of gas and dust that was thrown off earlier in the star’s life.

The extra distance the light had to travel to strike the shell, before being reflected towards observers on Earth, means that the light arrives later. In the case of η Carinae, nearly 170 years later!

The reflected light has its properties changed by the motion of the material off which it reflects. In particular, the light shows a notable blueshift, telling astronomers that the material itself is traveling 210 km/sec.

This observation fits with theoretical predictions of eruptions similar to the type η Carinae is thought to have undergone. However, the light echo has also highlighted some discrepancies between expectation and observation.

Typically, η Carinae’s eruption is classified as a “supernova impostor”. This title is fitting since the eruptions create a large change in the overall brightness.

However, although these events may release 10% of the total energy of a typical supernova or more, the star remains intact.

The main model to explain such eruptions is that a sudden increase in the star’s energy output causes some of the outer layers to be blown off in an opaque wind.

This shell of material is so thick, that it gives a large increase in the effective surface area from which light is emitted, thereby increasing the overall brightness.

However, for this to happen, models predict that the temperature of the star prior to the eruption needs to be at least 7,000 K.

Analyzing the reflected light from the eruption places the temperature of η Carinae at the time of the eruption at a much lower 5,000 K.

This would suggest that the favored model for such events is incorrect and that another model, involving an energetic blast was (a mini-supernova), may be the true culprit, at least in η Carinae’s case.

Yet this observation is somewhat at odds with observations made in the years following the eruption.

As spectrography came into use, astronomers in 1870 visually noticed emission lines in the star’s spectrum which is more typical in hotter stars.

In 1890, η Carinae had a smaller eruption and a photographic spectrum put the temperature around 6,000 K.

While this may not accurately reflect the case of the Great Eruption, it is still puzzling how the star’s temperature could change so quickly and may also indicate that the favoured model of the opaque-wind model is a better fit for later times or the smaller eruption, which would suggest two different mechanisms causing similar results in the same object on short timescales.

NASA Chandra X-ray Images: Carina Nebula: 14,000+ Stars

The Carina Nebula is a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has detected more than 14,000 stars in the region.

Chandra's X-ray vision provides strong evidence that massive stars have self-destructed in this nearby star-forming region.

Firstly, there is an observed deficit of bright X-ray sources in the area known as Trumpler 15, suggesting that some of the massive stars in this cluster were already destroyed in supernova explosions.

Trumpler 15 is located in the northern part of the image and is one of ten star clusters in the Carina complex.

The detection of six possible neutron stars, the dense cores often left behind after stars explode in supernovas, provides additional evidence that supernova activity is increasing up in Carina. Previous observations had only detected one neutron star in Carina.

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L. Townsley et al.

NASA Hubble Image: Carina Nebula

The earliest rocks in our solar system were more like candy floss than the hard rock that we know today, according to research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The earliest rocks in our solar system were more like candy floss than the hard rock that we know today, according to research published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The study provides new insight into how rocky planets form and evolve.

The work, by researchers from Imperial College London and other international institutions, provides the first geological evidence to support previous theories, based on computer models and lab experiments, about how the earliest rocks were formed.

The study adds weight to the idea that the first solid material in the solar system was fragile and extremely porous - much like candy floss - and that it was compacted during periods of extreme turbulence into harder rock, forming the building blocks that paved the way for planets like Earth.

Dr Phil Bland, lead author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says:

"Our study makes us even more convinced than before that the early carbonaceous chondrite rocks were shaped by the turbulent nebula through which they travelled billions of years ago, in much the same way that pebbles in a river are altered when subjected to high turbulence in the water. Our research suggests that the turbulence caused these early particles to compact and harden over time to form the first tiny rocks."

The researchers reached their conclusions after carrying out an extremely detailed analysis of an asteroid fragment known as a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, which came from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

It was originally formed in the early Solar System when microscopic dust particles collided with one another and stuck together, coalescing around larger grain particles called chondrules, which were around a millimetre in size.

To analyse the carbonaceous chondrite sample, the team used an electron back-scatter defraction technique, which fires electrons at the sample. Researchers observe the resulting interference pattern using a microscope to study the structures within.

This technique enabled the researchers to study the orientation and position of individual micrometre-sized grain particles that had coalesced around the chondrule. They found that the grains coated the chondrule in a uniform pattern, which they deduced could only occur if this tiny rock was subjected to shocks in space, possibly during these periods of turbulence.

The team also defined a new method to quantify the amount of compression that the rock had experienced and deduce the rock's original fragile structure.

Dr Bland adds: "What's exciting about this approach is that it allows us - for the first time - to quantitatively reconstruct the accretion and impact history of the most primitive solar system materials in great detail.

Our work is another step in the process helping us to see how rocky planets and moons that make up parts of our Solar System came into being."

In the future, the team will focus further studies on how the earliest asteroids were built.

Brilliant Star In A Colourful Neighbourhood of Carina Nebula

This image of part of the Carina Nebula was created from images taken through red, green and blue filters with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

It is centred on the unusual hot massive young star WR 22, a member of the rare class of Wolf-Rayet stars.

The field of view is 0.55 x 0.55 degrees, covering a 72 x 72 light-year region at the distance of the nebula.

Credit: ESO

Very massive stars live fast and die young. Some of these stellar beacons have such intense radiation passing through their thick atmospheres late in their lives that they shed material into space many millions of times more quickly than relatively sedate stars such as the Sun.

These rare, very hot and massive objects are known as Wolf-Rayet stars, after the two French astronomers who first identified them in the mid-nineteenth century, and one of the most massive ones yet measured is known as WR 22.

It appears at the centre of this picture, which was created from images taken through red, green and blue filters with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. WR 22 is a member of a double star system and has been measured to have a mass at least 70 times that of the Sun.

WR 22 lies in the southern constellation of Carina, the keel of Jason's ship Argo in Greek mythology. Although the star lies over 5000 light-years from the Earth it is so bright that it can just be faintly seen with the unaided eye under good conditions.

WR 22 is one of many exceptionally brilliant stars associated with the beautiful Carina Nebula (also known as NGC 3372) and the outer part of this huge region of star formation in the southern Milky Way forms the colourful backdrop to this image.

The subtle colours of the rich background tapestry are a result of the interactions between the intense ultraviolet radiation coming from hot massive stars, including WR 22, and the vast gas clouds, mostly hydrogen, from which they formed

Hubble Image of Carina Nebula: Star birth in the extreme

Star birth in the extreme Hubble spacetelescope.org

Hubble's view of the Carina Nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail.

The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno.

In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.

The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina the Keel (of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, from Greek mythology).

This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

The Hubble images were taken in the light of ionized hydrogen. Colour information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.

NASA Hubble image of Carina Nebula

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope image captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that 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 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.

The image celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth. Hubble was launched April 24, 1990

Picture: AP / NASA

NASA: Carina Nebula - MAD ESO's VLT

This impressive image of the open cluster known as Trumpler 14 was obtained with the Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator (MAD) mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope.

The cluster, which is found to be only 500 000 years old - a blink of an eye in the Universe's history - resides at the outskirts of the central region of the Carina Nebula, located some 8000 light-years away towards the constellation of Carina (the Keel).

Trumpler 14 is not only the youngest, but also one of the most populous clusters within the nebula.

Astronomers counted about 2000 stars in the very central parts of this cluster.

The MAD instrument allows astronomers to obtain very sharp images over a wide area and this image is the adaptive optics image that so far covers the widest area on the sky. The field of view is about 2 arcminutes across and the image is based on data obtained through two different filters (K and H).

Read and See More ESO Images......

Picture: ESO / AFP/GETTY