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Robert McNees

2 years ago

Robert McNees
2 years ago

Happy 33rd birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope, launched onboard space shuttle Discovery (STS-31) #OTD in 1990.

The 2023 anniversary image is the nebula NGC 1333, a star forming region about 970 light years away in the constellation Perseus.

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI

NASA’s image description:

Ferocious stellar winds, likely from the bright blue star at the top of the image, are blowing through a curtain of dust. The fine dust scatters the starlight at blue wavelengths.

Farther down, another bright, super-hot star shines through filaments of obscuring dust, looking like the Sun shining through scattered clouds. A diagonal string of fainter accompanying stars looks reddish because dust is filtering starlight, allowing more of the red light to get through.

The bottom of the picture presents a keyhole peek deep into the dark nebula. Hubble captures the reddish glow of ionized hydrogen. It looks like a fireworks finale, with several overlapping events. This is caused by pencil-thin jets shooting out from newly forming stars outside the frame of view. These stars are surrounded by circumstellar disks, which may eventually produce planetary systems, and powerful magnetic fields that direct two parallel beams of hot gas deep into space, like a double light saber from science fiction films. They sculpt patterns on the hydrogen cocoon, like laser-light-show tracings. The jets are a star's birth announcement.

#otd

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