Rather Pretentious Stellar Birth: R136 Shows Star Formation like None Before

Astronomers have never seen anything like it. From the magnificence of the image below, it is easy to assume that this star cluster is no ordinary one (but, was there ever a regular or ordinary stellar cluster!?). The stars that comprise such a one are extremely massive giants, which are proposed to become supernovae in the next million years, yet are situated so close to the earth; everything about the image and its features speak of pretentiousness far beyond the way we know of it today. After all, look at its definition (thanks to Collins English Dictionary): "having or creating a deceptive outer appearance of great worth; ostentatious." Although this image and its contents on the surface may seem like another of Hubble's masterpieces, it too has its own story.

RMC 136 is a unique cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, particularity in the 30 Doradus Nebula. The imaging Hubble used to capture this moment in space history was incredible and has benefited astronomers on account of the close proximity the cluster is to our planet. Because the cluster is only 1-2 million light years away, Hubble can resolve each individual star, allowing the study of stellar evolution (how the stars formed) clearer, as this topic is not that well understood so far. Hubble has scored again!

If you would care to view this cluster on your own, it is possible. Although the cluster is approximately 9.5 magnitude (which means a telescope is definitely required in viewing it) it is at these coordinates of RA and Dec: (05^h 38^m 42.396^s, -69° 06′ 03.36″) What is Right Ascension and Declination? [Image Below from Wikisky] The black box below shows the location of the object in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Stellar Rebellion! Young Star Rebels Against its Parent Cloud

Sh 2-106 (S106) was a tranquil, picturesque nursery where stars began their life, but according to some new information, one star isn't too happy about its present state. Despite its pulchritudinous appearance, S106 has become a warpath of a star who is actually 'rebelling' against its parent's nursery, which has been described as 'demonic' and 'diabolic.' With a mass about fifteen times that of the sun, this star, named S106 IR has certainly taken rebellion underway, with its disturbing jets and ejection of material; other stars aren't too keen on the disruption that's taking place, let alone the parent cloud (not that they have feelings)!

"For now, S106 IR remains embedded in its parent cloud, but it is rebelling against it," the European Space Association (with the Hubble) write in their article, Young Star Rebels Against its Parent Cloud.The gas that is seen in the below picture does look attractive, but it is actually over 10000 degree Celsius on account of the galactic disturbance. "The star's radiation ionises the hydrogen lobes, making them glow," (what light color is blue in the image; the red light is the cooling dust lanes).

Use of these images is courtesy of the UK Schmidt Telescope (copyright in which is owned by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of the UK and the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board) and the Southern Sky Survey as created by the SuperCOSMOS measuring machine. From here.

Ground-based view of the area around star-forming region S 106

http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1118a/ Star Rebellion!

Bizzare Galaxy Astronomers are Iconoclasitc About Almost Illegally Churns-Out Stars

A galaxy discovered by Bahram Mobasher and his graduate student Hooshang Nayyeri from University of California, does not conform to the unwritten universal "laws" that state that a galaxy as old as it is, should not be able to produce as much star formation as has been producing. Why such a "crime"? GN-108036, the name of the galaxy, is approximately 12.9 billion light years away, meaning it is very young. As galaxies mature, they can start producing more stars; this galaxy is very young, but it is accomplishing what a mature galaxy ought to produce. This poses a serious question on the problem of the age of the universe, which always has been a  controversial aspect of astronomy.

GN-108036 (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/University of Tokyo)

Research done with the Hubble and Spitzer Telescopes, the researchers found that GN-108036 has a high star production rate, correlative to approximately on-hundred suns every year. Although our galaxy (Milky Way) is much larger in size, it makes about thirty percent less than GN-108036, and is much older than this galactic star factory. Astronomers were literally startled at is presence, because it is very young, doing a mature galaxies' work, periodically out-bursting the creation of new stars. It was only discovered during such an outburst.

It was at this time when Spitzer's help significantly added to the research done on this object. Spitzer's designed use of infrared cameras and optics were definitely "crucial for measuring the galaxy's star-formation activity," as Science Daily explains. "The high rate of star formation found for GN-108036 implies that it was rapidly building up its mass some 750 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only about five percent of its present age," said Mobasher (a professor of physics and astronomy). "This was therefore a likely ancestor of massive and evolved galaxies seen today."

What perhaps most astonished astronomers was the redshift number of GN-108036. At 7.2, being very high, GN-108036 has become the third farthest object* with a redshift of over 7 (others have greater redshifts, though are not as far). In October of 2010, a galaxy was reported to have a redshift of 8.6, called UDFy-38135539, one of the highest recording so far; as for comparison. In another fashion of words, GN-108036 is an extremely rare galaxy, and nothing can change its youthful entrepreneurship.

[The researchers report their findings in the Astrophysical Journal. Other authors include: Kyle Penner and Benjamin J. Weiner of the University of Arizona, Tucson; Yoshiaki Ono, Kazuhiro Shimasaku and Kimihiko Nakajima of the University of Tokyo; Mark Dickinson and Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Ariz.; Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.; Nobunari Kashikawa of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; and Hyron Spinrad of UC Berkeley.]

*This will change as new galaxies/objects are discovered. 
Young Star Rebels Against Its Parent Cloud

Beautiful Uranus

"The Voyager 2 spacecraft captured this image of a crescent Uranus on January 25, 1986. This is Voyager’s final image of Uranus, before it left the planet behind and set forth on the cruise to Neptune. Voyager was 1 million kilometers (about 600,000 miles) from Uranus when it acquired this wide-angle view. Note that Uranus retains its pale blue-green color seen by ground-based astronomers and recorded by Voyager during its historic encounter. Image Credit: NASA" Earthsky.com

Click on the image to get a larger exposure!

The Hubble Space Telescope took this picture of Uranus in 2006. The planet's south pole is on the left in this picture. At the time this image was obtained, there was a bright hood of methane clouds over the Uranian south pole. Image Credt: NASA, ESA, L. Sromovsky and P. Fry (University of Wisconsin), H. Hammel (Space Science Institute), and K. Rages (SETI Institute).