Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Wolk et al;
Optical: DSS & NOAO/AURA/NSF; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
While fireworks only last a short time here on Earth, a bundle of cosmic sparklers in a nearby cluster of stars will be going off for a very long time. NGC 1333 is a star cluster populated with many young stars that are less than 2 million years old, a blink of an eye in astronomical terms for stars like the Sun expected to burn for billions of years.
This new composite image combines X-rays
from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) with infrared data from
the Spitzer Space Telescope (red) as well as optical data from the
Digitized Sky Survey and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Mayall 4-meter telescope on Kitt Peak (red, green, blue). The Chandra
data reveal 95 young stars glowing in X-ray light, 41 of which had not
been identified previously using infrared observations with Spitzer
because they lacked infrared emission from a surrounding disk.
To make a detailed study of the X-ray properties of young stars, a
team of astronomers, led by Elaine Winston from the University of
Exeter, analyzed both the Chandra X-ray data of NGC 1333, located about 780 light years
from Earth, and of the Serpens cloud, a similar cluster of young stars
about 1100 light years away. They then compared the two datasets with
observations of the young stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster, perhaps the most-studied young star cluster in the Galaxy.
The researchers found that the X-ray brightness of the stars in NGC
1333 and the Serpens cloud depends on the total brightness of the stars
across the electromagnetic spectrum, as found in previous studies of
other clusters. They also found that the X-ray brightness mainly depends
on the size of the star. In other words, the bigger the stellar
sparkler, the brighter it will glow in X-rays.
These results were published in the July 2010 issue of the Astronomical Journal and are available online.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the
Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the
Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space
Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado.
Fast Facts for NGC 1333:
Scale: Image is 18 arcmin across (about 4 light years)
Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA 03h 29m 02.00s | Dec +31 20 54.00
Constellation: Perseus
Observation Date: 12 Jul 2000, 05, 11 Jul 2006
Observation Time: 36 hours 7 min (1 day 12 hours 7 min).
Obs. ID: 642, 6436, 6437
Instrument: ACIS
References: Rebull, L.M., 2015, AJ (accepted); arXiv:1504.07564
Color Code: X-ray (Pink); Optical (Red, Green, Blue); Infrared (Red)
Distance Estimate: About 770 light years
Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
