A Dust Cloud in NGC 281
影像提供: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI / AURA) and P. McCullough (STScI)
Explanation:
Stars themselves can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular clouds from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds. The heat they generate evaporates the dark molecular dust as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. Pictured above, a new open cluster of stars designated IC 1590 is nearing completion around the intricate interstellar mountain named NGC 281. The dust cloud NGC 281, dubbed the Pacman nebula because of its overall shape, is classified as a dense Bok Globule that lies about 10,000 light years distant.
說明:
誕生在緻密暗分子雲內的恆星，常會產生巨大且形狀複雜的塵埃雕塑。恆星用以雕出它們精細作品的工具，則是高能量的星光及高速的恆星風；所產生的熱，蒸發了誕生它們的暗分子塵埃雲，吹散周圍的氫氣並讓氫氣發出紅色輝光。在上面影像中，位在星際分子雲柱 NGC 281內、編號為的IC 1590新疏散星團，幾乎已快完成它的工作。因為它的整體外觀，塵埃雲NGC 281又被戲稱為小精靈星雲，它是一種緻密的包克雲球，離我們約有10,000光年遠。
資料來源: Scientific American
Department of Physics, NCKU
