![]() ![]() As gas falls into the young protostar, it creates shocks on its surface that radiate energy. Instead, its light comes from radiation surface shocks. As a protostar, it hasn’t gathered enough mass to trigger the nuclear fusion that takes place in older stars. HD 97300 is a young, massive star that hasn’t entered the Main Sequence yet. ![]() A star named HD 97300 provides the light. IC 2631 is a reflection nebula about 500 light-years away in a giant star-forming region called the Chamaeleon Cloud Complex. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), and ESO Processing Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Hubble observed a small part of IC2631 in a survey looking at the disks of newly-formed stars. ![]() In 1912, American astronomer Vesto Slipher understood that light from a nearby star lights nebulae up rather than some intrinsic characteristic of the nebula itself. They even called galaxies nebulae.Īs time went on and telescopes and observations improved, they figured more things out. The word nebula means ‘cloud’ or ‘fog’ in Latin, so early astronomers called anything that appeared cloud-like a nebula. Reflection nebulae may also be the site of star formation.In the early days of astronomy, astronomers weren’t certain what they saw when they spotted a nebula. The supergiant star Antares, which is very red ( spectral class M1), is surrounded by a large, red reflection nebula. A blue reflection nebula can also be seen in the same area of the sky as the Trifid Nebula. Reflection nebulae and emission nebulae are often seen together and are sometimes both referred to as diffuse nebulae. Reflection nebula are usually blue because the scattering is more efficient for blue light than red (this is the same scattering process that gives us blue skies and red sunsets). Edwin Hubble further distinguished between the emission and reflection nebulae in 1922. Calculations by Ejnar Hertzsprung in 1913 lend credence to that hypothesis. Discovery Īnalyzing the spectrum of the nebula associated with the star Merope in the Pleiades, Vesto Slipher concluded in 1912 that the source of its light is most likely the star itself, and that the nebula reflects light from the star (and that of the star Alcyone). The latter two are often aligned with the galactic magnetic field and cause the scattered light to be slightly polarized. diamond dust) and compounds of other elements such as iron and nickel. Among the microscopic particles responsible for the scattering are carbon compounds (e. g. This image combines over 5 hours of total exposure time. Thus, the frequency spectrum shown by reflection nebulae is similar to that of the illuminating stars. The M78 Reflection Nebula in Orion is one of the brightest reflection nebulae in the night sky. The energy from the nearby stars is insufficient to ionize the gas of the nebula to create an emission nebula, but is enough to give sufficient scattering to make the dust visible. In astronomy, reflection nebula are clouds of interstellar dust which might reflect the light of a nearby star or stars. The blue color is caused not only by Rigel's blue color but because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. Fine dust in the nebula reflects the light. The nebula glows primarily by light reflected from Rigel, located just outside the top right corner of the image. The Witch Head reflection nebula (IC2118), about 900 light years from earth, is associated with the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion. ![]()
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