Stellar Family Portrait: Fabulous Capture of the Spitzer Space Telescope

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The Spitzer space telescope, managed by NASA, has captured a huge celestial mosaic where we can observe, among other things, multiple star clusters, some older and more evolved than the others, born from same dense tufts of gas and dust, all assemble a generational stellar portrait.

A large part of the image (including data from two Spritzer instruments) is occupied by a cloud of gas and dust, a nebula. Looking closer, it seems that the cloud flows at its end by the white and shiny spot, but it is actually the rest of a larger cloud, cut by the radiation of the stars. Massive stars illuminate the bright region, that of a group that stretches above the white spot. There is a different wavelength of infrared light, invisible to human eyes, represented by the white color in the form of a mixture of four colors (blue, green, orange and red ). The red glow comes from the dust heated by the radiation of the stars.

Looking at the left side of the image, we can see a dark filament unfold horizontally across the green cloud and lots of red and yellow dots (baby stars) inside. The area named Cepheus C is an ingenious and dense concentration of gas and dust where small stars form. As they get older, the stars will produce strong winds that, in their life processes led by explosion and death, will disperse the dark vein of matter. As a result, an illuminated inflated region, resembling the bright red and white region, will be created. The name of the region, Cepheus C, comes from the constellation Cepheus, near the constellation Cassiopeia, and extends for about 6 light-years, about 40 light-years away from the luminous dot at the end of the day. end of the nebula.

Looking at the right side of the image, we can find a second large nebula having a group of stars located above. It is Cephee B, a few thousand light years from our Sun. The dates collected by Spitzer tell us that the collection dates from 4 to 5 million years ago, a little more than that of Cepheus C.

Looking at all the dates collected, the mosaic forms a true family portrait where we can find infants, parents and grandparents from star-forming regions. With the stars growing inside clouds of dense materials, they produce winds blowing gas and dust to form amazing nebulae, like the white spot. and brilliant located at the top of the largest nebula. Like Cepheus B, star clusters will remain alone in space because dust and gases will disperse.

What else can we see?

If we look below Cepheus C, we will see a small red hourglass called V374 Ceph, surrounded by a disc of dark and dusty matter that looks like the shadow of the disc, according to NASA astronomers.

Remaining on the right side of the image, in the upper left of the nebula, we will observe a blue star crowned by a tiny arc of red light that creates a shock wave by quickly depressing gas and dust.

At the same spot is a small group of small stars that illuminates their dense cloud of gas and dust. There is an image where this region is more visible thanks to the data collected on one of the instruments of Spitzer and it is in the form of a splash of teal.

How did NASA get the images?

Using data from the infrared camera (IRAC) and the multiband imaging photometer (MIPS) collected during Spitzer's "cold" mission, before exhaustion of the dye at the 39, space shuttle liquid helium in 2009 (the colors correspond to the 3.6 micron wavelengths of the IRAC). (blue), 8 microns (green), 4.5 microns (cyan) and MIPS at 24 microns (red)), the two-instrument image was assembled.

At the same time, with colors corresponding to the wavelengths of 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 μm (blue, green, orange and red), the data used only came from the # 39; RAIC.

To better understand the region that forms the star Cerpheus C, some high school students and teachers have analyzed Spitzer data for two years (2016 and 2017) to identify the presence of young stellar objects. NITARP – NASA / IPAC Teachers' Archives Research Program – led by astronomer Luisa Rebull of IPAC in Caltech, they identified more than 100 such objects, never seen in previous studies. There is a website for educators who wish to participate in NITARP.

There are many places that, with their combined works, offer us amazing details about the universe. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Spitzer Science Center in Caltech, Pasadena, where the scientific operations, the Spitzer Space Telescope jet propulsion system for the NASA Science Missions Directorate in Washington, are conducted are Space operations are based, Infrared Science Archive, hosted at IAPC at Caltech, where data is archived. For NASA, JPL is managed by Caltech.

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