... 2004 April 14 . Massive Star Forming Region DR21 in Infrared . ... Explanation: Deep in the normally hidden recesses of giant molecular cloud DR21, a stellar nursery has been found creating some of the most massive stars yet recorded. The orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope 's Infrared Array Camera opened the window into the cloud last year in mid- infrared light. The cloud is opaque to visible light because of dense interstellar dust . ... About APOD | ...

... Star Forming Region Hubble V . ... 25.12.2001 . ... Hubble Heritage Team , NASA Explanation: How did stars form in the early universe? Astronomers are gaining insight by studying NGC 6822 , a nearby galaxy classified as irregular by modern standards but appearing more typical of galaxies billions of years ago . ... Publications with keywords: Hubble V - NGC 6822 - star formation . Publications with words: Hubble V - NGC 6822 - star formation . ... NGC 2174: Stars Versus Mountains . ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

Next: M.E. Bailey, Director Up: Research Previous: C.S. Jeffery, Research Astronomer Contents . ... How do Stars Form? ... Other Work and Activities . ... The interaction of young stars with their surroundings are accentuated within Herbig-Haro Objects, where streams and `bullets' of ejected gas impact on the ambient molecular clouds. ... The astrophysical jets are spectacular. ... Michael Smith and collaborators have searched for, and found, the first evidence of rotation within the jets. ...

Next: Ejectors in Massive Binary Previous: Artificial Galaxy: Full Matrix . The first version of the Scenario Machine was aimed especially at the simulation of massive binary star evolution. ... First, there is a large class of intermediate mass binaries (say, consisting initially of 8 + 5 solar masses) that can also produce NS and thus lead to the formation of a bright X-ray source. ... Next: Ejectors in Massive Binary Previous: Artificial Galaxy: Full Matrix Mike E. Prokhorov . ...

... Resembling a gigantic hubcap in space, a 3,700 light-year-diameter dust disk encircles a 300 million solar-mass black hole in the center of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052. ... Because the front end of the disk eclipses more stars than the back, it appears darker. ... Despite its size, the disk is 100 times less massive than the black hole. ... The bright spot in the center of the disk is the combined light of stars that have crowded around the black hole due to its strong gravitational pull. ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 9:20 AM CST, January 6, 1999 CONTACT: John Biretta Space Telecsope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (Phone: (410) 338-4917; Internet: biretta@stsci.edu) HUBBLE DETECTS FASTER-THAN-LIGHT MOTION IN GALAXY M87 Astronomers reported today discovering clouds which appear to move many times faster than the speed of light, shooting out from the region of a black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. ... It's an illusion created by the finite speed of light and rapid motion," Biretta said. ...

... Star Atlas . ... Behemoth black hole found in an unlikely place . ... black holes . ... If a supernovaт??s original star is massive enough to form a black hole, why is there any explosion? Why doesnт??t the entire mass of the original star simply fall onto the newly formed black hole and instantly vanish? ... For some massive stars, it may be possible that collapse leads directly to the formation of a black hole with no explosion. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ...

3) Planets and Brown Dwarfs . ... By its nature, this method is most sensitive to massive planets orbiting close to their stars. ... That means that some of the more massive extrasolar planets could actually be brown dwarfs (although the statistics of the finds suggest that most of them are not). ... Another possible difference between brown dwarfs and massive planets is how they are born. ... They would base the fundamental definition on the mode of formation: a planet is built from planetesimals. ...

Within the Hubble Ultra Deep Field there are approximately 10,000 discrete objects. ... Most of these objects are very small and likely have masses in the range of 10 5 to 10 7 solar masses. Note the mass of the Milky Way galaxy is 10 12 solar masses. ... Finally, for you cosmologists/experts out there this ultra deep field is quite consistent with what was seen in the original Hubble Deep Field 5) don't necessarily have small angular diameters. ...

... ATNF Colloquium . Tightening the belt: Constraining the mass and evolution in SDC335 . ... ALMA Cycle 0 observations identified one of the most massive star-forming cores observed in the Milky Way. Situated within the IRDC SDC335.579-0.292 this core, along with an accompanying lower mass core, appear to be in the early stages of forming massive (M * 8 M solar ) stars. In this talk the results of ATCA follow up continuum observations (6, 8, 23, 25 GHz) will be presented. ... today * ATNF | ...

... Comet Animation . ... Comet structures are diverse and very dynamic, but they all develop a surrounding cloud of diffuse material, called a coma, that usually grows in size and brightness as the comet approaches the Sun. ... As comets approach the Sun they develop enormous tails of luminous material that extend for millions of kilometers from the head, away from the Sun. ... The evaporated molecules boil off and carry small solid particles with them, forming the comet's coma of gas and dust. ...

... Science User Portal . ... ESO, the European Southern Observatory . ... Travel and Contacts . Travel to ESO Headquarters . ... Travel to Guesthouse . ... Survey Telescopes . ... This video fades back and forth between views of the stellar nursery Monoceros R2 in visible and infrared light. The visible-light view was created from digitised photographs through red and blue filters forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS) and the new infrared view comes from the VISTA telescope at Paranal. ...

... GSAOI Home . ... Science . ... Deep imaging at J , H , and K is required to identify all stellar objects, brown dwarfs, and planetary mass objects in the central region of the Orion Nebula Cluster down to masses comparable to that of Jupiter. This is required to establish the initial mass function, i.e., the number of stars of each mass that have formed, in this region of intense massive star formation. ... The fields of the GSAOI detectors are shown as four green squares in each frame. ...

... STScI-PRC95-45a CRUCIBLE OF CREATION: PANORAMIC HUBBLE MOSAIC ZOOMS IN ON MAELSTROM OF STAR BIRTH This spectacular color panorama of the center the Orion nebula is one of the largest pictures ever assembled from individual images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. ... Though this 2.5 light-years wide view is still a small portion of the entire nebula, it includes almost all of the light from the bright glowing clouds of gas and a star cluster associated with the nebula. ...

... Two new LBV stars have been discovered in the Andromeda Galaxy. ... In Figure 1 the spectral energy distributions for six stars are shown: upper row - the newly discovered LBV stars, middle row - two well-known LBV stars Var A-1 and AE And, the lower row - two new B[e]-supergiant stars in Andromeda. ... Infrared spectra of the stars in the Andromeda Galaxy: two classical LBVs Var A-1 and AE And, two new LBVs J004526.62 and J004051.59, and two new B[e]-supergiants J004417.10 and J004444.52. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Armagh Planetarium . ... Stars . ... Space Flight . ... Monthly Sky Notes . ... NGC 6357's inner star forming region glows with the emission of ionized hydrogen gas. Image credit: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. ... Located around 8000 light years away in the constellation of Scorpius , NGC 6357 (sometimes called the Lobster Nebula ) is a typical stellar nursery, filled with vast clouds of gas and tendrils of dark dust. ... Subscribe to Astronotes . ...

... Our Sun is part of a huge wheel-shaped collection of stars. ... Astronomers have long suspected it was a very massive black hole, and that every galaxy had such a central mass, created early in the history of the universe. ... However, unless that object happens to be headed directly at the black hole (a relatively small target) it will just swing around and fly away again, like a comet making a pass at the Sun. The velocity acquired in falling towards the black hole also helps it escape. ...

... Today this year's largest group of sunspots will cross the Sun's central meridian. ... The next day, the number of spots in the group reached five, and the day after, on June 2nd, it was possible to count thirteen sunspots on solar disk, which had been clear prior to this. ... This year's two most powerful active areas, which passed across the solar disk at the beginning of May, 2009, are set to appear in the Sun's eastern sector in two days, on June 6th. ...

The lost world: Pluto and Haron. Pluto . ... Mass . ... The period of rotation . ... Pluto is the ninth from the Sun big planet of the solar system. ... The careful processing of the snapshots with the images of the star sky parts, where the new planet was thought to be found was not successful at that time (later on when Pluto had been discovered the snapshots of 1991 were processed again and there were the four very weak and invisible earlier imeges of the planet seen). ...