Astronomy

Celebrating fourth anniversary of the launch of Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA released newly expanded image of the Helix nebula. This spectacular object, a dying star unraveling into space, is a favorite of amateur and professional astronomers alike. Spitzer has mapped the expansive outer structure of the six-light-year-wide nebula, and probed the inner region around the central dead star to reveal what appears to be a planetary system that survived the star’s chaotic death throes.

The Helix Nebula, which is composed of gaseous shells and disks puffed out by a dying sunlike star, exhibits complex structure on the smallest visible scales. In this new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, infrared light at wavelengths of 3.2, 4.5, and 8.0 microns has been colored blue, green, and red (respectively). The “cometary knots” show blue-green heads due to excitation of their molecular material from shocks or ultraviolet radiation. The tails of the cometary knots appear redder due to being shielded from the central star’s ultraviolet radiation and wind by the heads of the knots.

Spitzer launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on August 25, 2003. In its four years of operations, Spitzer has provided unprecedented infrared views of objects as diverse as asteroids in our own solar system to galaxies at the edge of the observable universe. Recent discoveries include the first detection of water vapor on a planet orbiting another star and a titanic galactic collision five billion light-years away.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ J. Hora (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Post to: delicious, Digg, ma.gnolia, Stumbleupon