Hubble image archive
Hubble Captures Spectacular "Landscape" in the Carina Nebula
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this billowing cloud of cold interstellar gas and dust rising from a tempestuous stellar nursery located in the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. This pillar of dust and gas serves as an incubator fo...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2010
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2010-13-2718-image
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this billowing cloud of cold interstellar gas and dust rising from a tempestuous stellar nursery located in the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. This pillar of dust and gas serves as an incubator for new stars and is teeming with new star-forming activity.
Hot, young stars erode and sculpt the clouds into this fantasy landscape by sending out thick stellar winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation. The low-density regions of the nebula are shredded while the denser parts resist erosion and remain as thick pillars. In the dark, cold interiors of these columns new stars continue to form.
In the process of star formation, a disk around the proto-star slowly accretes onto the star's surface. Part of the material is ejected along jets perpendicular to the accretion disk. The jets have speeds of several hundreds of miles per second. As these jets plow into the surround nebula, they create small, glowing patches of nebulosity, called Herbig-Haro (HH) objects.
Long streamers of gas can be seen shooting in opposite directions off the pedestal on the upper right-hand side of the image. Another pair of jets is visible in a peak near the top-center of the image. These jets (known as HH 901 and HH 902, respectively) are common signatures of the births of new stars.
This image celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar on Feb. 1-2, 2010. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red).
Credits
Image
NASA, ESA, Mario Livio (STScI), Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HH 901 and HH 902 in the Carina Nebula |
| Object Description | Carina Nebula Star-forming Pillars and Herbig-Haro Objects with Jets |
| R.A. Position | 10h 44m 5.25s |
| Dec. Position | -59° 29' 44.99" |
| Constellation | Carina |
| Distance | 7,500 light-years (2,300 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created from HST data from proposal : M. Livio, K. Noll, M. Mutchler, Z. Levay, L. Frattare, W. Januszewski, C. Christian, and T. Borders (Hubble 20th Anniversary Team, STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | February 1-2, 2010, Exposure Time: 9.3 hours |
| Filters | F673N ([S II]), F657N (H-alpha+[N II]), and F502N ([O III]) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures made by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Each filter was used to sample a narrow wavelength range over a broad range of the visible colors. The composite color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Red: F673N ([S II]) Green: F657N (H-alpha+[N II]) Blue: F502N ([O III]) |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov