APOD: Stardust in Perseus (2015 Oct 10)

[APOD Robot]

Stardust in Perseus

Explanation: This cosmic expanse of dust, gas, and stars covers some 6 degrees on the sky in the heroic constellation Perseus. At upper left in the gorgeous skyscape is the intriguing young star cluster IC 348 and neighboring Flying Ghost Nebula. At right, another active star forming region NGC 1333 is connected by dark and dusty tendrils on the outskirts of the giant Perseus Molecular Cloud, about 850 light-years away. Other dusty nebulae are scattered around the field of view, along with the faint reddish glow of hydrogen gas. In fact, the cosmic dust tends to hide the newly formed stars and young stellar objects or protostars from prying optical telescopes. Collapsing due to self-gravity, the protostars form from the dense cores embedded in the dusty molecular cloud. At the molecular cloud's estimated distance, this field of view would span almost 90 light-years.

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[Ann]

The dusty skyscape in Perseus is fascinating. I really like how today's APOD brings out a dusty funnel or tornado-like structure just "below" NGC 1333. This "tornado" actually resembles the tumultuous dust near the Hourglass Nebula at the center of the Lagoon Nebula. It is interesting to see how high-mass and low-mass star formation can produce similar dust structures.

Today's APOD also brings out subtle and beautiful colors in the dust, particularly just above and left of center.

Click to view full size image

VDB 19, Omicron Persei and IC 348.
Photo: Emil Ivanov

As a color commentator, I wish the blue channel in today's RGB APOD had been less suppressed. I also wish that bright star Omicron Persei had been more visible. Its light and color has been suppressed to the point that this star is not immediately obvious in the APOD. Of course a photographer can suppress starlight as much as he wants to in order to bring out dust structures, and it might be a very good idea to do so, too.

But I can't resist posting a picture by Emil Ivanov of Omicron Persei and IC 348.

Ann

[hoohaw]

"tornado-like" reminds me that there don't seem to be any interstellar "thunderstorms," nor lightning bolts on a cosmic scale. Why is that?

[saturno2]

It is a dusty area
Low vision

[NCTom]

I would think we could determine something about the composition of these dust clouds and hence what the young stellar objects had as their primary building blocks. Would this not also tell us something about what their life cycle would involve?

[starsurfer]

Wow that's dusty! The Flying Ghost Nebula is actually a really small reflection nebula below and to the right of IC 348. You can read more about it here. The dark nebula near the centre is B3 and there is a fantastic image of it by Antonio Sánchez. The emission/reflection nebula around it is Ced 18a. Finally, the image also includes the yellow reflection nebula vdB12 and the blue reflection nebula vdB13 below it in the neighbouring constellation of Aries to the right of NGC 1333. To the south of vdB13 is the dark nebula B203, which has been imaged in detail by Bernhard Hubl.

[Boomer12k]

Look....it's a REINDEER!!!!

Nice Pic....

:---[===] *

[Chris Peterson]

I would think we could determine something about the composition of these dust clouds and hence what the young stellar objects had as their primary building blocks. Would this not also tell us something about what their life cycle would involve?

We do know a lot about the composition of interstellar dust clouds. And of the material that goes into stars. However, their lifecycle is determined almost exclusively by their mass, not their initial composition (which is mostly hydrogen, no matter what dust clouds are present).

[Chris Peterson]

"tornado-like" reminds me that there don't seem to be any interstellar "thunderstorms," nor lightning bolts on a cosmic scale. Why is that?

Not enough potential. No conductive medium. And of course, keep in mind that as dusty as this looks, it's still a hard vacuum. If you were in there, you'd never know you were surrounded by dust. The density is extremely low.

[ta152h0]

Look, the moment my 73 DODGE Charger lost the oil pan

[neufer]

"tornado-like" reminds me that there don't seem to be any interstellar "thunderstorms," nor lightning bolts on a cosmic scale. Why is that?

Not enough potential. No conductive medium.

• Not enough potential. TOO MUCH conductive medium.
  
  Lightning results from the breakdown of an insulator.

<<In the big bang cosmology the entire universe was a plasma prior to recombination. Afterwards, much of the universe reionized after the first quasars formed and emitted radiation which reionized most of the universe, which largely remains in plasma form. Because plasmas are highly conductive, any charge imbalances are readily neutralised.>>

[ta152h0]

the " plasmatic theory ". Let's go have an ice cold one from the land of sky blue waters. unencumbered by religion and politics

[Sawngrighter]

"tornado-like" reminds me that there don't seem to be any interstellar "thunderstorms," nor lightning bolts on a cosmic scale. Why is that?

Not enough potential. No conductive medium. And of course, keep in mind that as dusty as this looks, it's still a hard vacuum. If you were in there, you'd never know you were surrounded by dust. The density is extremely low.

No conductive medium? Vacuum? Are you forgetting the theorized Dark Matter and Dark Energy which are said to make up 80% to 90% of the known universe?

[Sawngrighter]

Look, the moment my 73 DODGE Charger lost the oil pan

Lost your oil pan eh. You must have been flying! Maybe NASA ESA the Russians Chine India and Japan can retrieve that oil pan for you.

[NCTom]

Thanks, Chris. So even if part of these dust clouds might have their origins in ancient (super)nova, the presence of heavier elements from those earlier stars would not affect their life cycle. Hydrogen would be in abundance enough to limit the influence of any other elements. Initial mass is the critical factor when fusion begins.

[Chris Peterson]

Not enough potential. No conductive medium. And of course, keep in mind that as dusty as this looks, it's still a hard vacuum. If you were in there, you'd never know you were surrounded by dust. The density is extremely low.

No conductive medium? Vacuum? Are you forgetting the theorized Dark Matter and Dark Energy which are said to make up 80% to 90% of the known universe?

I'm not considering them because they seem irrelevant. Neither appears to interact with the electromagnetic force, so they shouldn't matter to any electrical currents flowing through space, or affect electric fields.

[Chris Peterson]

Thanks, Chris. So even if part of these dust clouds might have their origins in ancient (super)nova, the presence of heavier elements from those earlier stars would not affect their life cycle. Hydrogen would be in abundance enough to limit the influence of any other elements. Initial mass is the critical factor when fusion begins.

All of the dust came from stellar nucleosynthesis, most released in supernovas (and some in the smaller explosions of lower mass stars). But the dust is still just trace contamination in hydrogen clouds. It appears to be important as a sort of catalyst in the gravitational collapse that leads to star formation, but not to the kind of stars that form.

[Ann]

Thanks, Chris. So even if part of these dust clouds might have their origins in ancient (super)nova, the presence of heavier elements from those earlier stars would not affect their life cycle. Hydrogen would be in abundance enough to limit the influence of any other elements. Initial mass is the critical factor when fusion begins.

All of the dust came from stellar nucleosynthesis, most released in supernovas (and some in the smaller explosions of lower mass stars). But the dust is still just trace contamination in hydrogen clouds. It appears to be important as a sort of catalyst in the gravitational collapse that leads to star formation, but not to the kind of stars that form.

Well, maybe there is a small difference between the stars that form from dusty and those that form from almost dust-free gas. Stars made of relatively "pristine" gas are slightly more "transparent", and therefore they are a bit hotter for their mass, so to speak. In other words, if the Sun had had much less dust compared with what it does today, but had been as massive as it is today, it would have been slightly hotter than today. How much hotter would it have been? I can't really guess, but let's say it would have been an F8V star instead of a G2V star. It would have been a few hundred K hotter. But it wouldn't have been brighter, and its lifetime would have been the same.

Or so I think anyway.

Ann

[neufer]

All of the dust came from stellar nucleosynthesis, most released in supernovas (and some in the smaller explosions of lower mass stars). But the dust is still just trace contamination in hydrogen clouds. It appears to be important as a sort of catalyst in the gravitational collapse that leads to star formation, but not to the kind of stars that form.

<<A protostellar cloud will continue to collapse as long as the gravitational binding energy can be eliminated. This excess energy is primarily lost through radiation. However, the collapsing cloud will eventually become opaque to its own radiation, and the energy must be removed through some other means. The dust within the cloud becomes heated to temperatures of 60–100 K, and these particles radiate at wavelengths in the far infrared where the cloud is transparent. Thus the dust mediates the further collapse of the cloud.>>

<<A carbon star is a late-type star similar to a red giant (or occasionally to a red dwarf) whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen; the two elements combine in the upper layers of the star, forming carbon monoxide, which consumes all the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving carbon atoms free to form other carbon compounds, giving the star a "sooty" atmosphere and a strikingly ruby red appearance.

Owing to its low surface gravity, as much as half (or more) of the total mass of a carbon star may be lost by way of powerful stellar winds. The material surrounding a carbon star may blanket it to the extent that the dust absorbs all visible light. The star's remnants, carbon-rich "dust" similar to graphite, is believed to be a significant factor in providing the raw materials for the creation of subsequent generations of stars and their planetary systems.>>