The Cat Paw Strikes
March 22nd 2011 04:17
Category: Nebulas
NGC 6334 Cats' Paw Nebula: NASA image
Our galaxy has a vast assortment of stars, the Milky Way it is an average galaxy much like others except we happen to be living in the suburbs.
5500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion), situated in the middle of the Milky Way is the Cat's Paw Nebula this nebula spans some across 50 light-years.
The surrounding gas and dust is being illuminated by hot young stars creating a some what reddish shape much like a cat’s Paw. The images captured are in the infra-red region of the visible light spectrum.
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) currently the largest telescope here on Earth specializes in penetrating the gas clouds and dust there in capturing images of object that we cannot readily see.
The cat’s Paw nebula is one of the most active Stella nurseries in our galaxy, spawning many young massive stars some nearly ten times the mass of our Sun and most were born recently well in the last few million years.
CURRENT MOON
There are many star-forming nebulas throughout the universe. NGC 6729 is another example of a nearby stellar nurseries, being in a close proximity to us is perhaps the most studied nebula so far.
Young Stars form deep within hot gas clouds these stars are in the early stages of their development and cannot be seen in visible-light telescopes because they are partially obscured by large swirling dust clouds that behave much like a curtain.
Behind the curtain of dust particles are the young maverick stars although well hidden wreak havoc on their surroundings. These infant stars are like spoiled brats. They spew out high-speed jets of material at velocities as high as one million kilometres per hour.
These jets are slamming into the surrounding gas and creating shock waves. The shocks cause the gas to glow creating the strangely coloured glowing arcs and blobs known as Herbig-Haro objects.The high speed gas ejected by these infant stars is enough to light up most of the vast gas expanse surrounding them which can seen in the image as Herbig-Haro objects.
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