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The Carina Nebula, where stars are forming in a huge mountain of dust. Hubble Space Telescope imaged. NASA, ESA |
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A fierce war is raging in the Carina Nebula. The so-called ‘star and dust’ confrontation is in full swing, and in this battle, surprisingly, the stars are shouting for victory.
To put it more precisely, the Hubble Space Telescope captured the scene where energetic light and wind from newly formed giant stars are scattered into outer space, emitting a mountain of dust, the spawning ground of their own birth, in all directions. Today’s Astrophotography’ (APOD) was published on August 1.
Located within the Carina Nebula, known as the Mystic Mountain, these massive pillars are shaped like pillars of black dust, despite being mostly composed of pure hydrogen gas. These dust pillars are actually much less dense than Earth’s air, and the relatively small amount of opaque interstellar dust makes them look like mountains.
Located about 7,500 light-years from Earth, this image of the Carina Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and spans about 3 light-years across. In a few million years, the entire dust mountain will disappear after the dust in the nebula has been exhausted into star-making material.
The Great Carina Nebula is also one of the brightest and most bizarre nebulae in our Milky Way galaxy, the first scientific-quality image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
The nebula’s most powerful star, Eta Carinae, was one of the brightest stars visible in the sky in 1830, but its dramatic darkening recently surprised astronomers. This star is expected to cause a supernova explosion in the near future, and many stars in the nebula as well as Eta are expected to evolve into supernovae, suggesting that the Great Carina Nebula is indeed a supernova factory.
Kwangsik Lee Science Columnist [email protected]
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