Jump to content

File:A stellar sprinkler (potw2316a).tiff

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (684 × 662 pixels, file size: 2.63 MB, MIME type: image/tiff)

Summary

Description
English: This Picture of the Week shows the young stellar object 244-440 in the Orion Nebula observed with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) –– the sharpest image ever taken of this object. That wiggly magenta structure is a jet of matter launched close to the star, but why does it have that shape?Very young stars are often surrounded by discs of material falling towards the star. Some of this material can be expelled into powerful jets perpendicularly to the disc. The S-shaped jet of 244-440 suggests that what lurks at the center of this object isn’t one but two stars orbiting each other. This orbital motion periodically changes the orientation of the jet, similar to a water sprinkler. Another possibility is that the strong radiation from the other stars in the Orion cloud could be altering the shape of the jet.These observations, presented in a new paper led by Andrew Kirwan at Maynooth University in Ireland, were taken with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO’s VLT in Chile. Red, green and blue colours show the distribution of iron, nitrogen and oxygen respectively. But this is just a small fraction of all the data gathered by MUSE, which actually takes thousands of images at different colours or wavelengths simultaneously. This allows astronomers to study not only the distribution of many different chemical elements but also how they move. Moreover, MUSE is installed at the VLT’s Unit Telescope 4, which is equipped with an advanced adaptive optics facility that corrects atmospheric turbulence, delivering images sharper than Hubble’s. These new observations will therefore allow astronomers to study with unprecedented detail how stars are born in massive clouds like Orion.
Date 17 April 2023 (upload date)
Source
This media was produced by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), under the identifier potw2316a

This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.

Author ESO/Kirwan et al.
Other versions

Licensing

This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Their website states: "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible."
To the uploader: You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available.
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

image/tiff

aed4aa6efbc8149e3adc52d12a56d8a108cd9317

2,752,804 byte

662 pixel

684 pixel

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current03:48, 18 April 2023Thumbnail for version as of 03:48, 18 April 2023684 × 662 (2.63 MB)OptimusPrimeBot#Spacemedia - Upload of https://cdn.eso.org/images/original/potw2316a.tif via Commons:Spacemedia

The following page uses this file:

Metadata