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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 2016 November 29

W5: The Soul of Star Formation

Where do stars form? Many times, stars form in energetic regions where gas and dark dust are pushed around in chaotic mayhem. Pictured, bright massive stars near the center of W5, the Soul Nebula, are exploding and emitting ionizing light and energetic winds. The outward-moving light and gas push away and evaporate much surrounding gas and dust, but leave pillars of gas behind dense protective knots. Inside these knots, though, stars also form. The featured image highlights the inner sanctum of W5, an arena spanning about 1,000 light years that is rich in star forming pillars. The Soul Nebula, also cataloged as IC 1848, lies about 6,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Queen of Aethopia (Cassiopeia). Likely, in few hundred million years, only a cluster of the resulting stars will remain. Then, these stars will drift apart.

cosmicvastness

NGC 346 and NGC 371 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

In the Southern constellation Tucana lies the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy orbiting our own Milky Way galaxy and home to the bright star-forming nebula and cluster NGC 346 depicted here in this image together with its neighbour NGC 371. The densely populated star field covering the entire field of view is part of the central bar structure in the SMC. NGC 346 is a beautiful bright emission nebula in the central bar of the SMC. It is easily identifiable even in small telescopes as the brightest nebula in the SMC, and shows as an extended spiral shaped swirl surrounding a brighter centre which is home to the central star cluster. Near the core this nebula has a curious sharply defined edge curving around the cluster. The strong stellar winds from the young hot stars in the cluster have blown out the surrounding gas into diffuse filament-like structures extending far from the core region. It is interesting to imagine how impressive this magnificent nebula might have looked like if it was located in our own galaxy instead of in the SMC some 210,000 light years distant. A detailed close-up image of this nebula is available from the Hubble Space Telescope. The neighbouring NGC 371 (to the right) is a large and diffuse star cluster, surrounded by a glow of emission which appears intensely blue in this narrowband image. The cluster itself has a visual diameter of 7 arc minutes, corresponding to a real physical diameter of 350 light years.

Credit: Rolf Olsen