NGC 6334, also
known as the Cat’s Paw Nebula, comes alive in this infrared image from
the Spitzer Space Telescope. NGC 6334 is forming stars so rapidly that
it is undergoing a “mini-starburst.” Young stars are heating surrounding
dust, causing it to glow. In this representative-color photo red shows
light at a wavelength of 8 microns, green is 4.5 microns, and blue is
3.6 microns. Credit: S. Willis (CfA); NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC. High Resolution Image (jpg) - Low Resolution Image (jpg)
.jpg)
This
representative-color photo of NGC 6334 combines infrared data from the
Herschel and Spitzer spacecraft and ground-based NEWFIRM instrument.
Warm dust, illuminated by the high-mass stars that are scattered
throughout the cloud complex, shows up in green. The red and orange
spots mark the very massive young stars that are just forming within the
nebula. The dark clouds, primarily at the upper left and lower right of
the image, mark the densest areas where the next generation of stars
will form. The hazy blue-white regions mark where the light emitted by
the hot young stars is reflected back to us by the remaining dust and
gas. In this photo red shows light at a wavelength of 70 microns, green
is 8 microns, and blue is 1.2 microns. Credit: S. Willis (CfA); ESA/Herschel ; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC; CTIO/NOAO/AURA/NSF. High Resolution Image (jpg) - Low Resolution Image (jpg)
Indianapolis, IN - Most
skygazers recognize the Orion Nebula, one of the closest stellar
nurseries to Earth. Although it makes for great views in backyard
telescopes, the Orion Nebula is far from the most prolific star-forming
region in our galaxy. That distinction may go to one of the more
dramatic stellar nurseries like the Cat's Paw Nebula, otherwise known as
NGC 6334, which is experiencing a "baby boom."
"NGC 6334 is forming stars at a more rapid pace than Orion - so rapidly
that it appears to be undergoing what might be called a burst of star
formation," said lead author Sarah Willis of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and Iowa State University. "It might
resemble a 'mini-starburst,' similar to a scaled-down version of the
spectacular bursts sometimes seen in other galaxies."
Willis presented a new study of NGC 6334 today in a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
NGC 6334 is a realm of extremes. The nebula contains about 200,000 suns'
worth of material that is coalescing to form new stars, some with up to
30 to 40 times as much mass as our Sun. It houses tens of thousands of
recently formed stars, more than 2,000 of which are extremely young and
still trapped inside their dusty cocoons. Most of these stars are
forming in clusters where the stars are spaced up to a thousand times
closer than the stars in the Sun's neighborhood.
The cause of the baby boom in NGC 6334 isn't clear. Two processes often
suggested to trigger bursts of star formation are blast waves from a
nearby supernova explosion, or molecular cloud collisions when galaxies
smash together. Neither is the case here.
That mystery is one reason why astronomers are interested in NGC 6334.
Rapid star formation is often seen in luminous starburst galaxies (like
the Antennae galaxies for example). Because NGC 6334 is nearby,
astronomers can probe it in much greater detail, even down to counting
the numbers of individual stars of various types and ages.
Starbursts also light up galaxies in the early universe, making them
bright enough to study. The processes that produce these distant bursts
are equally puzzling and even harder to study in detail because the
objects appear so small and faint.
"Young galaxies in the early universe are small smudges of light in our
telescopes, and we can only study the collective processes over the
whole galaxy. Here in NGC 6334, we can count the individual stars,"
explained co-author Howard Smith of the CfA.
The region was observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Blanco
telescope at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory. "Both space
and groundbased observations were needed to identify the young stars,"
said Lori Allen (National Optical Astronomy Observatory), the principle
investigator of the observations.
The starburst in NGC 6334 began relatively recently and will last for
only a few million years - a blink of the eye on cosmic timescales.
"We're lucky, not only because it's nearby but also because we're catching it while the starburst is happening," said Willis.
In the future, NGC 6334 will resemble multiple Pleiades star clusters,
each filled with up to several thousand stars. Unfortunately, it won't
look as impressive as the Pleiades to Earthbound telescopes because it
is more than ten times farther away, at a distance of 5,500 light-years,
and its location in the galactic plane obscures the region behind a lot
of dust.
NGC 6334, in the constellation Scorpius, spans a distance of about 50
light-years and covers an area on the sky slightly larger than the full
Moon.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint
collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the
Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research
divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the
universe.
For more information, contact:
David A. Aguilar
Director of Public Affairs
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu
Christine Pulliam
Public Affairs Specialist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu
