NASA Missions Spot Cosmic 'Wreath' Displaying Stellar Circle of Life

NGC 602

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Infrared: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeilder, E.Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

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A Tour of NGC 602 - More Images

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Since antiquity, wreaths have symbolized the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It is fitting then that one of the best places for astronomers to learn more about the stellar lifecycle resembles a giant holiday wreath itself.

The star cluster NGC 602 lies on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, about 200,000 light-years from Earth. The stars in NGC 602 have fewer heavier elements compared to the Sun and most of the rest of the galaxy. Instead, the conditions within NGC 602 mimic those for stars found billions of years ago when the universe was much younger.

This new image combines data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with a previously released image from the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. The dark ring-like outline of the wreath seen in Webb data (represented as orange, yellow, green, and blue) is made up of dense clouds of filled dust.

Meanwhile, X-rays from Chandra (red) show young, massive stars that are illuminating the wreath, sending high-energy light into interstellar space. These X-rays are powered by winds flowing from the young, massive stars that are sprinkled throughout the cluster. The extended cloud in the Chandra data likely comes from the overlapping X-ray glow of thousands of young, low-mass stars in the cluster.

NGC 2264, the “Christmas Tree Cluster”
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand);
View Animated Version

In addition to this cosmic wreath, a new version of the “Christmas tree cluster” is also now available. Like NGC 602, NGC 2264 is a cluster of young stars between one and five million years old. (For comparison, the Sun is a middle-aged star about 5 billion years old — about 1,000 times older.) In this image of NGC 2264, which is much closer than NGC 602 at a distance of about 2,500 light-years from Earth, Chandra data (red, purple, blue, and white) has been combined with optical data (green and violet) captured from by astrophotographer Michael Clow from his telescope in Arizona in November 2024.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Quick Look: NASA Missions Spot Cosmic 'Wreath' Displaying Stellar Circle of Life

Source: NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory

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Visual Description:

This release includes two composite images, each featuring a star cluster that strongly resembles holiday greenery.

The first image depicts star cluster NGC 602 in vibrant and festive colors. The cluster includes a giant dust cloud ring, shown in greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. The green hues and feathery edges of the ring cloud create the appearance of a wreath made of evergreen boughs. Hints of red representing X-rays provide shading, highlighting layers within the wreath-like ring cloud.

The image is aglow with specks and dots of colorful, festive light, in blues, golds, whites, oranges, and reds. These lights represent stars within the cluster. Some of the lights gleam with diffraction spikes, while others emit a warm, diffuse glow. Upon closer inspection, many of the glowing specks have spiraling arms, indicating that they are, in fact, distant galaxies.

The second image in today's release is a new depiction of NGC 2264, known as the "Christmas Tree Cluster". Here, wispy green clouds in a conical shape strongly resemble an evergreen tree. Tiny specks of white, blue, purple, and red light, stars within the cluster, dot the structure, turning the cloud into a festive, cosmic Christmas tree!

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Fast Facts for NGC 602:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Infrared: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeilder, E.Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
Scale: Image is about 3 arcmin (175 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA 01h 29m 28.7s | Dec -73° 33´ 40.8"
Constellation: Hydrus
Observation Dates: 11 pointings between 31 March and 29 April, 2010
Observation Time: 80 hours 45 minutes (3 days 8 hours 45 minutes)
Obs. ID: 10985-10986, 11978-11979, 11988-11989, 12130-12131, 12134, 12136, 12207
Instrument: ACIS
References: Oskinova, L. et al, 2013, ApJ, 765 73; arXiv:1301.3500
Color Code: X-ray: red; Infrared: orange, yellow, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 200,000 light-years

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Fast Facts for NGC 2264:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
Scale: Image is about 77 arcmin (56 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 06h 40m 42.8s | Dec: +09° 49' 3.6"
Constellation: Monoceros
Observation Dates: 8 observations from February 2002 to December 2011
Observation Time: 137 hours 26 minutes ( 5 days 17 hours 26 mintues)
Obs. IDs: 2540, 2550, 9768, 9769, 13610, 13611, 14368, 14369
Instrument: ACIS
References: Ramirez, S.V., et al., 2004, AJ, 127,2659; arXiv:astro-ph:0401533
Color Code: X-ray: red, green, and blue; Optical: green and white
Distance Estimate: About 2,500 light-years

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Dark Energy Camera captures most detailed image of the resplendent Rosette Nebula and the star cluster fueling its glow

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Rosette Nebula Captured with DECam

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Excerpts From Rosette Nebula

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Videos

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Cosmoview Episode 87: Radiant Stars at the Heart of a Cosmic Rose

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Zooming into the Rosette Nebula

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Pan on the Rosette Nebula

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Cosmoview Episodio 87: Estrellas radiantes en el corazón de una rosa cósmica

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Cradled within the fiery petals of the Rosette Nebula is NGC 2244, the young star cluster which it nurtured. The cluster’s stars light up the nebula in vibrant hues of red, gold and purple, and opaque towers of dust rise from the billowing clouds around its excavated core. This image, captured by the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera, is being released in celebration of NOIRLab’s fifth anniversary.

Around 5000 light-years away, the Rosette Nebula appears to be blooming right out the interstellar medium. Every detail of this cosmic flower, from its glowing central cavity to its shadowy filaments and globulettes, is captured in this image by 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 in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

Located in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn), the Rosette Nebula spans 1.3 degrees of sky, roughly the width of an index finger held out at arm’s length. For comparison, the well-known Orion Nebula, located in the constellation Orion just below the hunter’s belt, spans one degree of sky. Although the Rosette Nebula has a diameter of 130 light-years — more than five times as large as the Orion Nebula — their apparent sizes are similar because the former is four times as distant.

As prominent as the nebula’s ‘petals’ is the conspicuous absence of gas at its center. The culprits responsible for excavating this hollow core are the most massive stars of NGC 2244 — the open star cluster nurtured by the nebula. This cluster was born around two million years ago after the nebula’s gasses coalesced into clumps brought together by their mutual gravity. Eventually, some clumps grew to be massive stars that produce stellar winds powerful enough to bore a hole in the nebula’s heart.

NGC 2244’s massive stars also emit ultraviolet radiation, which ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas and lights up the nebula in an array of brilliant colors. The billowing red clouds are regions of H-alpha emission, resulting from highly energized hydrogen atoms emitting red light. Along the walls of the central cavity, closer to the massive central stars, the radiation is energetic enough to ionize a heavier atom like oxygen, which glows in shades of gold and yellow. Finally, along the edges of the flower’s petals are wispy tendrils of deep pink glowing from the light emitted by ionized silicon.

The Rosette Nebula’s bright and glowing features are certainly striking; but its dark and shadowy features also command attention. Around the nebula’s excavated nucleus is a string of dark clouds dubbed ‘elephant trunks,’ so-named because of their trunk-like pillars. These structures are opaque because they contain obscuring dust, and they line the border between the hot shell of ionized hydrogen and the surrounding environment of cooler hydrogen. As the shell expands outwards it encounters cold and clumpy gas that resists its push. This creates the long and extended trunks whose lengths point like fingers towards the central cluster.

One of these dark features is the Wrench Trunk, its claw-like head seen towards the upper right of the central cluster. Unlike the prototypical Pillars of Creation trunks which stand like straight columns, the Wrench’s ‘handle’ has an unusual spiral shape which traces the magnetic field of the nebula.

Less obvious but equally interesting are the dark globulettes. Sometimes round and sometimes teardrop-shaped, these diminutive blobs of dust are smaller than the better known globules at only a few times more massive than Jupiter. A string of them can be seen near the Wrench Trunk, but hundreds more dot the entire Rosette Nebula. These globulettes may host brown dwarfs and planets within them.

Like all roses, the Rosette Nebula will not last forever, for the same stars it birthed will also bring about its death. In roughly 10 million years the radiation from the hot, young stars of the NGC 2244 cluster will have dissipated the nebula. By then the rosette will no longer be, and its massive stars will be left without their parent cloud.

This huge 377-megapixel image is being released in celebration of NOIRLab’s fifth anniversary. On 1 October 2019 NOIRLab’s five programs — Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, the Community Science and Data Center, the International Gemini Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory and Vera C. Rubin Observatory — were brought together under one organization. In the years since, NOIRLab’s world-class telescopes have contributed to many discoveries and countless press releases, and produced an impressive collection of stunning astronomical images showcasing our diverse and colorful Universe.

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

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More information

NSF NOIRLab (U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the U.S. center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National 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 astronomical 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 that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

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Links

• Explore the Rosette Nebula 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

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Contacts

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

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NGC 2264: Sprightly Stars Illuminate 'Christmas Tree Cluster'

NGC 2264 (Video)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and B.A. Wolpa (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA); Infrared: NASA/NSF/IPAC/CalTech/Univ. of Massachusetts; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & J.Major

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This new image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights. NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses.

This new composite image enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation-supported WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows a nebula of gas in the cluster in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree. Finally infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image.

NGC 2264 (Video)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and B.A. Wolpa (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA); Infrared: NASA/NSF/IPAC/CalTech/Univ. of Massachusetts; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & J.Major

 

Young stars, like those in NGC 2264, are volatile and produce strong flares in X-rays and other types of variations seen at different wavelengths of light. The coordinated, blinking variations shown in this animation, however, are artificial, to emphasize the locations of the stars seen in X-rays and highlight the similarity of this object to a Christmas tree. In reality the variations of the stars are not synchronized.

The variations observed by Chandra and other telescopes are caused by several different processes. Some of these are related to activity involving magnetic fields, including flares like those undergone by the Sun — but much more powerful — and hot spots and dark regions on the surfaces of the stars that go in and out of view as the stars rotate. There can also be changes in the thickness of gas obscuring the stars, and changes in the amount of material still falling onto the stars from disks of surrounding gas.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Source: NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory

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Visual Description:

This release features a composite image of a cluster of young stars looking decidedly like a cosmic Christmas tree! The cluster, known as NGC 2264, is in our Milky Way Galaxy, about 2,500 light-years from Earth. Some of the stars in the cluster are relatively small, and some are relatively large, ranging from one tenth to seven times the mass of our Sun.

In this composite image, the cluster's resemblance to a Christmas tree has been enhanced through image rotation and color choices. Optical data is represented by wispy green lines and shapes, which creates the boughs and needles of the tree shape. X-rays detected by Chandra are presented as blue and white lights and resemble glowing dots of light on the tree. Infrared data show foreground and background stars as gleaming specks of white against the blackness of space. The image has been rotated by 160 degrees from the astronomer's standard of North pointing upwards. This puts the peak of the roughly conical tree shape near the top of the image, though it doesn't address the slight bare patch in the tree's branches, at our lower right, which in a living room should probably be turned to the corner!

In this release, the festive cluster is presented as both a static image, and as a short animation. In the animation, blue and white X-ray dots from Chandra flicker and twinkle on the tree, like the lights on a Christmas tree.

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Fast Facts for (NGC 2264):

Scale: Image is about 77 arcmin (56 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA 06h 40m 52s | Dec +09° 52´ 37"
Constellation: Monoceros
Observation Dates: 8 observations from February 2002 to December 2011
Observation Time: 137 hours 26 minutes (5 days, 17 hours, 26 mintues)
Obs. ID: 2540, 2550, 9768, 9769, 13610, 13611, 14368, 14369
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: blue, purple, white; Optical: green; Infrared: red, green, blue
Distance Estimate: About 2,500 light-years

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Astronomers Find Progenitor of Magnetic Monster

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Artist’s impression of a highly unusual star that may evolve into a magnetar

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Infographic: Evolution of a massive magnetic helium star into a magnetar

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Artist Impression of Newly Formed Magentar

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Massive Magnetic Helium Star Goes Supernova

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Videos

 

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Interview with NOIRLab Astronomer André-Nicolas Chené

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Research team including NOIRLab astronomer identify highly unusual star that may evolve into a magnetar — the most magnetic object in the known Universe

A team of researchers, including NOIRLab astronomer André-Nicolas Chené, has found a highly unusual star that has the most powerful magnetic field ever found in a massive star — and that may become one of the most magnetic objects in the Universe: a variant of a neutron star known as a magnetar. This finding marks the discovery of a new type of astronomical object — a massive magnetic helium star — and sheds light on the origin of magnetars.

Neutron stars, the compact remains of a massive star following a supernova explosion, are the densest matter in the Universe. Some neutron stars, known as magnetars, also claim the record for the strongest magnetic fields of any object. How magnetars, which are a mere 15 kilometers across, form and produce such colossal magnetic fields remains a mystery.

New observations by a team of astronomers, including NSF’s NOIRLab’s André-Nicolas Chené, may shed important light on the origin of these magnetic powerhouses. Using various telescopes around the globe, including the Canada-France-Hawai‘i Telescope (CFHT) on Maunakea [1], the researchers have identified a new type of astronomical object — a massive magnetic helium star (an unusual variant of a Wolf-Rayet star), which may be the precursor of a magnetar.

“For the first time, a strong magnetic field was discovered in a massive helium star,” said Chené. “Our study suggests that this helium star will end its life as a magnetar.”

Despite having been observed for more than a century by astronomers, little was known about the true nature of this star, known as HD 45166, beyond the fact that it is rich in helium, somewhat more massive than our Sun, and part of a binary system.

“This star became a bit of an obsession of mine,” said Tomer Shenar, an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam and lead author of a study published in the journal Science. Having studied similar helium-rich stars before, Shenar was intrigued by the unusual characteristics of HD 45166, which has some of the characteristics of a Wolf-Rayet star, but with a unique spectral signature. He suspected that magnetic fields could explain these perplexing characteristics. "I remember having a Eureka moment while reading the literature: ‘What if the star is magnetic?’,” he said.

Shenar, Chené, and their collaborators set out to test this hypothesis by taking new spectroscopic observations of this star system with the CFHT. These observations revealed that this star has a phenomenally powerful magnetic field, about 43,000 gauss [2], the most powerful magnetic field ever found in a massive star. By also studying its interactions with its companion star, the team were able to make precise estimates of its mass and age.

The researchers speculate that, unlike other helium stars that eventually evolve from a red supergiant, this particular star was likely created by the merger of a pair of intermediate-mass stars.

“This is a very specific scenario, and it raises the question of how many magnetars come from similar systems and how many come from other types of systems,” said Chené.

In a few million years, HD 45166, which is located 3000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn), will explode as a very bright, but not particularly energetic, supernova. During this explosion, its core will contract, trapping and concentrating the star’s already daunting magnetic field lines. The result will be a neutron star with a magnetic field of around 100 trillion gauss — the most powerful type of magnet in the Universe.

“We thought that the most likely magnetar candidates would come from the most massive of stars,” said Chené. “What this research shows us is that stars that are much less massive can still become a magnetar, if the conditions are just right.”

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

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More Information

[1] The team also relied on key archive data taken with the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

[2] Gauss is a unit of measurement of magnetic induction, also known as magnetic flux density (essentially, a measure of magnetic strength). The Sun’s typical polar magnetic field is 1–2 gauss, while sunspots can achieve a magnetic field strength of around 3000 gauss.

Reference: Shenar, T., Wade, G., Marchat, P., et al. 2023, A massive helium star with a sufficiently strong magnetic field to form a magnetar, Science, DOI 10.1126.

NSF’s NOIRLab, the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National 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 astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam 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 that these sites have to the Tohono O'odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

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Links

• Research paper
• ESO version of release
• Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope release

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Contacts:

Charles Blue
NSF’s NOIRLab
Tel: +1 202 236 6324
Email: charles.blue@noirlab.edu

André-Nicolas Chené
NSF's NIORLab
Email: andre-nicolas.chene@noirlab.edu

Tomer Shenar
University of Amsterdam
Email: t.shenar@uva.nl

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New type of star gives clues to mysterious origin of magnetars

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Artist’s impression of HD 45166, the star that might become a magnetar

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Videos

PR Video eso2313a

New type of star gives clues to magnetars' origins (ESOcast 264 Light)

PR Video eso2313b

Artist’s animation of HD 45166, the most magnetic massive star ever found

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Magnetars are the strongest magnets in the Universe. These super-dense dead stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields can be found all over our galaxy but astronomers don’t know exactly how they form. Now, using multiple telescopes around the world, including European Southern Observatory (ESO) facilities, researchers have uncovered a living star that is likely to become a magnetar. This finding marks the discovery of a new type of astronomical object — massive magnetic helium stars — and sheds light on the origin of magnetars.

Dispate having been observed for over 100 years, the enigmatic nature of the star HD 45166 could not be easily explained by conventional models, and little was known about it beyond the fact that it is one of a pair of stars [1], is rich in helium and is a few times more massive than our Sun.

“This star became a bit of an obsession of mine,” says Tomer Shenar, the lead author of a study on this object published today in Science and an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. “Tomer and I refer to HD 45166 as the ‘zombie star’,” says co-author and ESO astronomer Julia Bodensteiner, based in Germany. “This is not only because this star is so unique, but also because I jokingly said that it turns Tomer into a zombie."

Having studied similar helium-rich stars before, Shenar thought magnetic fields could crack the case. Indeed, magnetic fields are known to influence the behaviour of stars and could explain why traditional models failed to describe HD 45166, which is located about 3000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. “I remember having a Eureka moment while reading the literature: ‘What if the star is magnetic?’,” says Shenar, who is currently based at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain.

Shenar and his team set out to study the star using multiple facilities around the globe. The main observations were conducted in February 2022 using an instrument on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope that can detect and measure magnetic fields. The team also relied on key archive data taken with the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Once the observations were in, Shenar asked co-author Gregg Wade, an expert on magnetic fields in stars at the Royal Military College of Canada, to examine the data. Wade’s response confirmed Shenar’s hunch: “Well my friend, whatever this thing is — it is definitely magnetic.”

Shenar's team had found that the star has an incredibly strong magnetic field, of 43 000 gauss, making HD 45166 the most magnetic massive star found to date [2]. “The entire surface of the helium star has a magnetic field almost 100,000 times stronger than Earth's,” explains co-author Pablo Marchant, an astronomer at KU Leuven’s Institute of Astronomy in Belgium [see edit].

This observation marks the discovery of the very first massive magnetic helium star. “It is exciting to uncover a new type of astronomical object,” says Shenar, ”especially when it’s been hiding in plain sight all along.”

Moreover, it provides clues to the origin of magnetars, compact dead stars laced with magnetic fields at least a billion times stronger than the one in HD 45166. The team’s calculations suggest that this star will end its life as a magnetar. As it collapses under its own gravity, its magnetic field will strengthen, and the star will eventually become a very compact core with a magnetic field of around 100 trillion gauss [3] — the most powerful type of magnet in the Universe.

Shenar and his team also found that HD 45166 has a mass smaller than previously reported, around twice the mass of the Sun, and that its stellar pair orbits at a far larger distance than believed before. Furthermore, their research indicates that HD 45166 formed through the merger of two smaller helium-rich stars. “Our findings completely reshape our understanding of HD 45166,” concludes Bodensteiner.

Edit [17 August]: the quote by Pablo Marchant was changed since a unit conversion mistake led to the previous version being incorrect.

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Notes:

[1] While HD 45166 is a binary system, in this text HD 45166 refers to the helium-rich star, not to both stars.

[2] The magnetic field of 43 000 gauss is the strongest magnetic field ever detected in a star that exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass limit, which is the critical limit above which stars may collapse into neutron stars (magnetars are a type of neutron star).

[3] In this text, a billion refers to one followed by nine zeros and a trillion refers to one followed by 12 zeros.

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More information

This research was presented in a paper to appear in Science (doi: science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade3293).

The team is composed of Tomer Shenar (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands [API], now at the Centre for Astrobiology, Madrid, Spain), Gregg Wade (Department of Physics and Space Science, Royal Military College of Canada, Canada), Pablo Marchant (Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium [KU Leuven]), Stefano Bagnulo (Armagh Observatory & Planetarium, UK), Julia Bodensteiner (European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany; KU Leuven), Dominic M. Bowman (KU Leuven), Avishai Gilkis (The School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Israel), Norbert Langer (Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Universitӓt Bonn, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany), André Nicolas-Chené (National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Hawai‘i), Lidia Oskinova (Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universitӓt Potsdam, Germany [Potsdam]), Timothy Van Reeth (KU Leuven), Hugues Sana (KU Leuven), Nicole St-Louis (Département de physique, Université de Montréal, Complexe des sciences, Canada), Alexandre Soares de Oliveira (Institute of Research and Development, Universidade do Vale do Paraíba, São José dos Campos, Brazil), Helge Todt (Potsdam) and Silvia Toonen (API).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is located on Maunakea, land of the Kānaka Maoli people, and a mountain of considerable cultural, natural, and ecological significance to the Native Hawaiian people.

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Links:

• Research paper
• Photos of ESO’s La Silla Observatory
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Contacts:

Tomer Shenar
University of Amsterdam and Centre for Astrobiology
Amsterdam and Madrid, the Netherlands and Spain
Email: t.shenar@uva.nl

Julia Bodensteiner
European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49-89-3200-6409
Email: julia.bodensteiner@eso.org

Gregg Wade
Royal Military College of Canada
Tel: +1 613 541-6000 ext 6419
Email: Gregg.Wade@rmc-cmr.ca

Pablo Marchant
Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven
Leuven, Belgium
Tel: +32 16 33 05 47
Email: pablo.marchant@kuleuven.be

Lida Oskinova
Institute for Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam
Potsdam, Germany
Tel: +49 331 977 5910
Email: lida@astro.physik.uni-potsdam.de

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

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New image reveals secrets of planet birth

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Combined SPHERE and ALMA image of material orbiting V960 Mon

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SPHERE and ALMA images of material orbiting V960 Mon

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Intricate spiral arms around V960 Mon captured with SPHERE

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Large dusty clumps orbiting V960 Mon captured by ALMA

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The star V960 Mon in the constellation Monoceros

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The sky around the star V960 Mon

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Videos

 

PR Video eso2312a

Zooming in on V960 Mon 

PR Video eso2312b

ALMA drone footage compilation

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A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets.

“This discovery is truly captivating as it marks the very first detection of clumps around a young star that have the potential to give rise to giant planets,” says Alice Zurlo, a researcher at the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, involved in the observations.

The work is based on a mesmerising picture obtained with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT that features fascinating detail of the material around the star V960 Mon. This young star is located over 5000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros and attracted astronomers’ attention when it suddenly increased its brightness more than twenty times in 2014. SPHERE observations taken shortly after the onset of this brightness ‘outburst’ revealed that the material orbiting V960 Mon is assembling together in a series of intricate spiral arms extending over distances bigger than the entire Solar System.

This finding then motivated astronomers to analyse archive observations of the same system made with ALMA, in which ESO is a partner. The VLT observations probe the surface of the dusty material around the star, while ALMA can peer deeper into its structure. “With ALMA, it became apparent that the spiral arms are undergoing fragmentation, resulting in the formation of clumps with masses akin to those of planets,” says Zurlo.

Astronomers believe that giant planets form either by ‘core accretion’, when dust grains come together, or by ‘gravitational instability’, when large fragments of the material around a star contract and collapse. While researchers have previously found evidence for the first of these scenarios, support for the latter has been scant.

“No one had ever seen a real observation of gravitational instability happening at planetary scales — until now,” says Philipp Weber, a researcher at the University of Santiago, Chile, who led the study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Our group has been searching for signs of how planets form for over ten years, and we couldn't be more thrilled about this incredible discovery,” says team-member Sebastián Pérez from the University of Santiago, Chile.

ESO instruments will help astronomers unveil more details of this captivating planetary system in the making, and ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will play a key role. Currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the ELT will be able to observe the system in greater detail than ever before, collecting crucial information about it. “The ELT will enable the exploration of the chemical complexity surrounding these clumps, helping us find out more about the composition of the material from which potential planets are forming,” concludes Weber.

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More Information

The team behind this work comprises young researchers from diverse Chilean universities and institutes, under the Millennium Nucleus on Young Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS) research centre, funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) and its Millennium Science Initiative Program. The two facilities used, ALMA and VLT, are located in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

This research is presented in a paper to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ace186).

The team is composed of P. Weber (Departamento de Física, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile [USACH]; Millennium Nucleus on Young Exoplanets and their Moons, Chile [YEMS]; Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics and Space Exploration, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile [CIRAS]), S. Pérez (USACH; YEMS; CIRAS), A. Zurlo (YEMS; Núcleo de Astronomía, Universidad Diego Portales Chile [UDP]; Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile), J. Miley (Joint ALMA Observatory, Chile; National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Japan), A. Hales (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, USA), L. Cieza (YEMS; UDP), D. Principe (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, USA), M. Cárcamo (YEMS; CIRAS; USACH, Faculty of Engineering, Computer Engineering Department, Chile), A. Garufi (INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy), Á. Kóspál (Konkoly Observatory, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH), Hungary; CSFK, MTA Centre of Excellence, Hungary; ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Physics, Hungary; Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany), M. Takami (Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, ROC), J. Kastner (School of Physics & Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA), Z. Zhu (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, USA; Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, USA), and J. Williams (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, USA).

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

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Links

• Research paper
• Photos of the VLT
• Photos of ALMA 
• Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

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Contacts:

Philipp Weber
University of Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Cell: +56966821513 / +4915759366702
Email: philipppweber@gmail.com

Alice Zurlo
Universidad Diego Portales
Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56 22138153
Email: alice.zurlo@mail.udp.cl

Sebastián Pérez
University of Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Cell: +56 9 78776812
Email: sebastian.perez.ma@usach.cl

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 667
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

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'Smiling cat' nebula captured in new ESO image

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The Sh2-284 nebula, imaged by the VLT Survey Telescope

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Vast pillars around the edge of the Sh2-284 nebula

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The Sh2-284 nebula in the constellation Monoceros

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The sky around the Sh2-284 nebula

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Videos

PR Video eso2309a

Panning across the Sh2-284 nebula

 

PR Video eso2309b

Zooming into the Sh2-284 nebula 

 

PR Video eso2309c

Panning across the Sh2-284 nebula (no text)

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This cloud of orange and red, part of the Sh2-284 nebula, is shown here in spectacular detail using data from the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This nebula is teeming with young stars, as gas and dust within it clumps together to form new suns. If you take a look at the cloud as a whole, you might be able to make out the face of a cat, smiling down from the sky.

The Sh2-284 stellar nursery is a vast region of dust and gas and its brightest part, visible in this image, is about 150 light-years (over 1400 trillion kilometers) across. It’s located some 15 000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.

Nestled in the centre of the brightest part of the nebula — right under the ‘cat’s nose’ — is a cluster of young stars known as Dolidze 25, which produces large amounts of strong radiation and winds. The radiation is powerful enough to ionise the hydrogen gas in the cloud, thereby producing its bright orange and red colours. It’s in clouds like this that the building blocks for new stars reside.

The winds from the central cluster of stars push away the gas and dust in the nebula, hollowing out its centre. As the winds encounter denser pockets of material, these offer more resistance meaning that the areas around them are eroded away first. This creates several pillars that can be seen along the edges of Sh2-284 pointing at the centre of the nebula, such as the one on the right-hand side of the frame. While these pillars might look small in the image, they are in fact several light-years wide and contain vast amounts of gas and dust out of which new stars form.

This image was created using data from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), which is owned by The National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy, INAF, and is hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST is dedicated to mapping the southern sky in visible light and makes use of a 256-million-pixel camera specially designed for taking very wide-field images. This image is part of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which has studied some 500 million objects in our home galaxy, helping us better understand the birth, life, and eventual death of stars within our Milky Way.

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Links

• Photos of the VST
• Other images taken with the VST 
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

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Contacts:

Juan Carlos Muñoz Mateos
ESO Media Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6176
Email: jmunoz@eso.org

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

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ESO images a wondrous star factory to mark 60 years of collaboration

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ESO’s 60th anniversary image: the Cone Nebula as seen by the VLT

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Location of the Cone Nebula in the constellation of Monoceros

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Wide-field view of the Cone Nebula region of the sky

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Videos

 

PR Video eso2215a

Zooming in on the Cone Nebula

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For the past 60 years the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has been enabling scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe. We mark this milestone by bringing you a spectacular new image of a star factory, the Cone Nebula, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

On 5 October 1962 five countries signed the convention to create ESO. Now, six decades later and supported by 16 Member States and strategic partners, ESO brings together scientists and engineers from across the globe to develop and operate advanced ground-based observatories in Chile that enable breakthrough astronomical discoveries.​ 

On the occasion of ESO’s 60th anniversary we are releasing this remarkable new image of the Cone Nebula, captured earlier this year with one of ESO’s telescopes and selected by ESO staff. This is part of a campaign marking ESO's 60^th anniversary and taking place in late 2022, both on social media under the #ESO60years hashtag, and with local events in the ESO Member States and other countries. 

In this new image, we see centre-stage the seven-light-year-long pillar of the Cone Nebula, which is part of the larger star-forming region NGC 2264 and was discovered in the late 18th century by astronomer William Herschel. In the sky, we find this horn-shaped nebula in the constellation Monoceros (The Unicorn), a surprisingly fitting name.

Located less than 2500 light-years away, the Cone Nebula is relatively close to Earth, making it a well-studied object. But this view is more dramatic than any obtained before, as it showcases the nebula’s dark and impenetrable cloudy appearance in a way that makes it resemble a mythological creature.

The Cone Nebula is a perfect example of the pillar-like shapes that develop in the giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars. This type of pillar arises when massive, newly formed bright blue stars give off stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation that blow away the material from their vicinity. As this material is pushed away, the gas and dust further away from the young stars gets compressed into dense, dark and tall pillar-like shapes. This process helps create the dark Cone Nebula, pointing away from the brilliant stars in NGC 2264.

In this image, obtained with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on ESO’s VLT in Chile, hydrogen gas is represented in blue and sulphur gas in red. The use of these filters makes the otherwise bright blue stars, that indicate the recent star formation, appear almost golden, contrasting with the dark cone like sparklers.

This image is just one example of the many stunning and awe-inspiring observations ESO telescopes have made in the past 60 years. While this one was obtained for outreach purposes, the overwhelming majority of ESO’s telescope time is dedicated to scientific observations that have allowed us to capture the first image of an exoplanet, study the black hole at the centre of our home galaxy, and find proof that the expansion of our Universe is accelerating.

Building on our 60 years of experience in astronomy development, discovery and cooperation, ESO continues to chart new territory for astronomy, technology and international collaboration. With our current facilities and ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), we will keep on addressing humanity’s biggest questions about the Universe ​and enabling unimaginable discoveries.

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More Information

The image in this release was created as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration in astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates APEX and ALMA on Chajnantor, two facilities that observe the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

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Links

• More information on ESO’s 60th anniversary campaign
• Photos of the VLT
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

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Contacts:

Juan Carlos Muñoz Mateos
ESO Media Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6176
Email: press@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

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