APOD: T Tauri and Hind's Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

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APOD: T Tauri and Hind's Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

Post by APOD Robot » Sat May 03, 2014 4:10 am

Image T Tauri and Hind's Variable Nebula

Explanation: The yellowish star near center in this dusty telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars. Just next door is the yellow cosmic cloud historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC 1555). Over 400 light-years away, at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud, both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young (less than a few million years old), sun-like stars still in the early stages of formation. To further complicate the picture, infrared observations indicate that T Tauri itself is part of a multiple system and suggest that the associated Hind's Nebula may also contain a very young stellar object. The naturally colored image spans about 7 light-years at the estimated distance of T Tauri.

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Re: APOD: T Tauri and Hind s Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

Post by Beyond » Sat May 03, 2014 4:37 am

I was going to mention that the "are seen" link was a 'page cannot be displayed' thing, however, my Trouble Shooter window popped up and I clicked on it to fix the problem. After a little bit, it said that it couldn't determine the problem, so I clicked out of it, and Lo and Behold... there was the page. It works just fine now. ComPUters! Harrumph!!!!
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Re: APOD: T Tauri and Hind s Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

Post by BDanielMayfield » Sat May 03, 2014 1:46 pm

Awh, how cute. It’s a baby picture.
Ken Croswell wrote:T Tauri is only about a million years old. If the sun were a 40-year-old man, T Tauri would be a 3-day-old infant.
So from what I’ve read all stars above Brown Dwarfs up to about 3 Sun’s worth of mass go through this T Tauri pre-main sequence stage, where they are heating up due to gravitational contraction. (When a gas is compressed, it heats up. It’s the Law. Matter and energy always obey the laws, unlike people.) Since the majority of stars are less massive than our Sun that would be, what, about 90% of all stars going through this phase when they first start shining.

But BD’s and stars greater than 3 solar masses also heat up at first due to gravitational contraction. What would the comparable stages for such objects outside the T Tauri mass range be?

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Re: APOD: T Tauri and Hind s Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

Post by Boomer12k » Sat May 03, 2014 2:47 pm

Great Shot....intriguing area and object.....I wonder if other unseen Variables are responsible for the the discrepancies.


Looks like one of Ben 10's Aliens.....he is turning our way with his left arm up....


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Re: APOD: T Tauri and Hind's Variable Nebula (2014 May 03)

Post by starsurfer » Mon May 05, 2014 11:10 am

The other interesting thing about T Tauri is that is also drives a giant Herbig Haro outflow with a length of 5 light years! Part of this outflow can be seen as the small Herbig Haro object near the bottom of the image. The total length of the outflow is 38 arcminutes and would be nicely visible with Ha exposures. Strangely, nearly all images of this nebula are LRGB only. The entire outflow is faintly visible in the full frame image!

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