Dark Energy Camera Captures Sparse Pockets of Light Amongst Dark Clouds of Chamaeleon I

PR Image noirlab2519a
The Ominous Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud

---

Videos


PR Video noirlab2519a
Pan on the Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud


PR Video noirlab2519b
Zooming into the Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud


PR Video noirlab2519c

Cosmoview Episode 99: Dark Energy Camera Captures Sparse Pockets of Light Amongst Dark Clouds of Chamaeleon I (horizontal)

PR Video noirlab2519d

Cosmoview Episode 99: Dark Energy Camera Captures Sparse Pockets of Light Amongst Dark Clouds of Chamaeleon I (vertical)

  

PR Video noirlab2519e

Episodio 99 de Cosmoview: Cerro Tololo descubre pequeñas fuentes de luz dispersas entre una densa nube molecular cercana a la Tierra (horizontal) in English only

 

  

PR Video noirlab2519f

Episodio 99 de Cosmoview: Cerro Tololo descubre pequeñas fuentes de luz dispersas entre una densa nube molecular cercana a la Tierra (vertical)

---

From within the inky black plumes of the Chamaeleon I dark cloud, the light from three reflection nebulae breaks through

The ominous Chamaeleon I dark cloud, the nearest star-forming region to Earth, is captured in this image taken with the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. Chamaeleon I is one portion of the larger Chamaeleon Complex and is home to three reflection nebulae that are brightly illuminated by nearby newly formed stars.

The origin of our Sun, and all the planets, comets and asteroids that orbit it, can be traced back to their birthplace inside a massive cloud of cold gas and dust, not unlike the billowing molecular cloud featured in this image. Found within these cool regions of highly condensed interstellar material are stellar nurseries where young stars are emerging from the swirling gaseous plumes. These regions are also home to nebulae that shine bright with the reflected light of newly formed stars.

This image was captured with the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. It showcases the atramentous molecular cloud known as the Chamaeleon I dark cloud. Located about 500 light-years away, Chamaeleon I is the nearest active star-forming region to Earth. This dark cloud is estimated to be around two billion years old and is home to about 200–300 stars.

Chamaeleon I is just a small component of the larger Chamaeleon Complex, an enormous active stellar birthplace that occupies almost the entirety of the southern constellation Chamaeleon, even overlapping into Apus, Musca, Carina and Octans. The Chamaeleon Complex also includes the Chamaeleon II and Chamaeleon III dark clouds, which show little and no active star formation, respectively.

Near the center of this image, brightly glowing from within the thick cosmic dust, is one of Chamaeleon I’s notable features, the stunning reflection nebula Cederblad 111. Reflection nebulae are clouds of gas and dust that do not create their own light, but instead shine by reflecting the light from nearby stars. This happens in the surroundings of newly formed stars that are not hot enough to excite the hydrogen atoms of the cloud, as is the case for emission nebulae. Instead, their light bounces off of the particles within the cloud.

Cederblad 110, a second reflection nebula within Chamaeleon I, can be seen just above Cederblad 111 with its recognizable C-shape. Like Cederblad 111, Cederblad 110 lies close to an active low-mass star forming region where the light of young stars is scattered by the nebula’s dust particles. This reflection creates a bright pocket of light amongst the otherwise opaque clouds.

Below the pair of reflection nebulae is the orange-tinted Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula. Resembling the wings of an ethereal cosmic aviator, this nebula is the product of streams of fast-moving gas that are being ejected from a newly formed low-mass star at the core of the nebula. These streams have carved a tunnel through the interstellar cloud where the young star was born. The infrared and visible light emitted by the nascent star escapes along this tunnel and scatters off its walls, giving rise to the wispy reflection nebula.

Embedded throughout Chamaeleon I, astronomers have also found numerous Herbig-Haro objects — bright patches of nebulosity that form when ionized jets of gas ejected from newly born stars collide with slow-moving gas in the surrounding cloud. One of these objects can be spotted as a tiny, faint red patch lying in the dusty realm between Cederblad 111 and Cederblad 110

More information

NSF NOIRLab, the U.S. National Science Foundation center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory(a facility of NSF,NRC–Canada,ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil,;MINCyT–Argentina, andKASI–Republic of Korea), NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation withDOE’SLACNational Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

The scientific community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence of I’oligam Du’ag to the Tohono O’odham Nation, and Maunakea to the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) community.

The Dark Energy Camera was designed specifically for DES. It was funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) and was built and tested at DOE's Fermilab.

Source: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab)/News

---

Links

• Explore the Chamaeleon I dark cloud in more detail
• Photos of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope
• Videos of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope
• Photos of DECam
• Images taken by DECam
• Check out other NOIRLab Photo Releases

---

Contacts

Josie Fenske
Public Information Officer
NSF NOIRLab
Email: josie.fenske@noirlab.edu

---

Webb Unveils Dark Side of Pre-stellar Ice Chemistry

Chamaeleon I Molecular Cloud (NIRCam Image)
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA
Science: Fengwu Sun (Steward Observatory), Zak Smith (The Open University), IceAge ERS Team
Image Processing: M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud (NIRCam, NIRSpec, and MIRI Spectra)
Credits: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Science: Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI), Nicolas M. Crouzet (LEI), Zak Smith (The Open University), Melissa McClure (Leiden Observatory)

Release Images

---

If you want to build a habitable planet, ices are a vital ingredient because they are the main source of several key elements — namely carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur (referred to here as CHONS). These elements are important ingredients in both planetary atmospheres and molecules like sugars, alcohols, and simple amino acids.

An international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has obtained an in-depth inventory of the deepest, coldest ices measured to date in a molecular cloud. In addition to simple ices like water, the team was able to identify frozen forms of a wide range of molecules, from carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, and methane, to the simplest complex organic molecule, methanol. (The researchers considered organic molecules to be complex when having six or more atoms.) This is the most comprehensive census to date of the icy ingredients available to make future generations of stars and planets, before they are heated during the formation of young stars.

“Our results provide insights into the initial, dark chemistry stage of the formation of ice on the interstellar dust grains that will grow into the centimeter-sized pebbles from which planets form in disks,” said Melissa McClure, an astronomer at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, who is the principal investigator of the observing program and lead author of the paper describing this result. “These observations open a new window on the formation pathways for the simple and complex molecules that are needed to make the building blocks of life.”

In addition to the identified molecules, the team found evidence for molecules more complex than methanol, and, although they didn't definitively attribute these signals to specific molecules, this proves for the first time that complex molecules form in the icy depths of molecular clouds before stars are born.

“Our identification of complex organic molecules, like methanol and potentially ethanol, also suggests that the many star and planetary systems developing in this particular cloud will inherit molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state,” added Will Rocha, an astronomer at Leiden Observatory who contributed to this discovery. “This could mean that the presence of precursors to prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a common result of star formation, rather than a unique feature of our own solar system.”

By detecting the sulfur-bearing ice carbonyl sulfide, the researchers were able to estimate the amount of sulfur embedded in icy pre-stellar dust grains for the first time. While the amount measured is larger than previously observed, it is still less than the total amount expected to be present in this cloud, based on its density. This is true for the other CHONS elements as well. A key challenge for astronomers is understanding where these elements are hiding: in ices, soot-like materials, or rocks. The amount of CHONS in each type of material determines how much of these elements end up in exoplanet atmospheres and how much in their interiors.

"The fact that we haven't seen all of the CHONS that we expect may indicate that they are locked up in more rocky or sooty materials that we cannot measure,” explained McClure. “This could allow a greater diversity in the bulk composition of terrestrial planets.

Chemical characterization of the ices was accomplished by studying how starlight from beyond the molecular cloud was absorbed by icy molecules within the cloud at specific infrared wavelengths visible to Webb. This process leaves behind chemical fingerprints known as absorption lines which can be compared with laboratory data to identify which ices are present in the molecular cloud. In this study, the team targeted ices buried in a particularly cold, dense, and difficult-to-investigate region of the Chamaeleon I molecular cloud, a region roughly 500 light-years from Earth which is currently in the process of forming dozens of young stars.

“We simply couldn't have observed these ices without Webb,” elaborated Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, who was involved in this research. “The ices show up as dips against a continuum of background starlight. In regions that are this cold and dense, much of the light from the background star is blocked, and Webb’s exquisite sensitivity was necessary to detect the starlight and therefore identify the ices in the molecular cloud.”

This research forms part of the Ice Age project, one of Webb's 13 Early Release Science programs. These observations are designed to showcase Webb’s observing capabilities and to allow the astronomical community to learn how to get the best from its instruments. The Ice Age team has already planned further observations, and hopes to trace out the journey of ices from their formation through to the assemblage of icy comets. “This is just the first in a series of spectral snapshots that we will obtain to see how the ices evolve from their initial synthesis to the comet-forming regions of protoplanetary disks,” concluded McClure. “This will tell us which mixture of ices — and therefore which elements — can eventually be delivered to the surfaces of terrestrial exoplanets or incorporated into the atmospheres of giant gas or ice planets.”

These results were published in the Jan. 23 issue of Nature Astronomy.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

---

About This Release

Credits: Media Contact:

Bethany Downer
European Space Agency, Paris, France

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

Permissions: Content Use Policy

Contact Us: Direct inquiries to the News Team.

Related Links and Documents

• The science paper by M. McClure et al.

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

---