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16 January 2012

Space odyssey

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Find out more about these cosmic bodies in the February 2012 issue of Popular Mechanics - on sale on 23 January.

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<b>Antennae Galaxies</b><br>Eager astronomers around the world are queuing for time at the world’s most complex ground-based astronomical observatory, the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), which has offcially opened for business. This image of the Antennae Galaxies, the first to be released from a telescope still under construction, reveals a view of the Universe that cannot be seen at all by visible-light and infrared telescopes.
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At present, around a third of ALMA’s eventual 66 radio antennas, with separations up to only 125 metres rather than the maximum 16 kilometres, make up the growing array on the Chajnantor plateau in northern Chile, at an elevation of 5 000metres. ALMA observes the Universe in light with wavelengths roughly 1 000 times longer than visible-light wavelengths, allowing astronomers to study extremely cold objects in space – such as the dense clouds of cosmic dust and gas from which stars and planets form – as well as very distant objects in the early Universe.<p>Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

<b>Tarantula Nebula</b><br>This star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, known as 30 Doradus or the Tarantula Nebula, is about 160 000 light-years away, and one of the largest located close to our own Milky Way. About 2 400 massive stars in its centre are producing intense radiation and powerful winds as they blow off material. Multimillion-degree gas detected in X-Rays (blue) by Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory comes from shock fronts – similar to sonic booms – formed by these stellar winds and by supernova explosions. This hot gas carves out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust.<p>30 Doradus is also known as an HII (pronounced “H-two”) region, created when the radiation from hot, young stars strips away the electrons from neutral hydrogen atoms (HI) to form clouds of ionised hydrogen (HII). It is the largest and most massive HII region in the Local Group of galaxies, which contains the Milky Way, Andromeda and about 30 other smaller galaxies, including the two Magellanic Clouds.<p>Credit: X-ray: Nasa/CXC/PSU/L Townsley et al; Infrared: Nasa/JPL/PSU/L Townsley et al

<b>Carina Nebula</b><br>Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s APEX telescope in submillimetre-wavelength light reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy, is an ideal arena in which to study the interactions between these young stars and their parent molecular clouds.
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The APEX observations are shown here in orange tones, combined with a visible light image from the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. The result is a dramatic, wide-field picture that provides a spectacular view of Carina’s star formation sites. The nebula contains stars equivalent to over 25 000 Suns, and the total mass of gas and dust clouds is that of about 140 000 Suns.<p>Credit: ESO/APEX/T Preibisch et al (submillimetre); N Smith, University of Minnesota/NOAO/AURA/NSF (optical)

<b>Tycho’s supernova remnant</b><br>This new image of Tycho’s supernova remnant contains striking new evidence for the event that triggered the original supernova explosion, as seen from Earth in 1572. Tycho was formed by a Type Ia supernova, a category of stellar explosion used in measuring astronomical distances because of their reliable brightness.<p>Low- and medium-energy X-rays in red and green show expanding debris from the supernova explosion. High-energy X-rays in blue reveal the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons.<p>Also shown in the lower left region of Tycho is a blue arc of X-ray emission. Several lines of evidence support the conclusion that this arc is due to a shock wave created when a white dwarf exploded and blew material off the surface of a nearby companion star.<p>Previously, studies with optical telescopes have revealed a star within the remnant that is moving much more quickly than its neighbours, hinting that it could be the companion to the supernova that was given a kick by the explosion.<p>Credit: Nasa/CXC/Chinese Academy of Sciences/F Lu et al

$Arp 147 interacting galaxies A composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million lightyears from Earth, shows X-rays from Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left. This collision has produced an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing an abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes.A fraction of the neutron stars and black holes will have companion stars, and may become bright X-ray sources as they pull in matter from their companions. The nine X-ray sources scattered around the ring in Arp 147 are so bright that they must be black holes, with masses that are probably 10 to 20 times that of the Sun. An X-ray source is also detected in the nucleus of the red galaxy on the left and may be powered by a poorly fed supermassive black hole.Credit: X-ray: Nasa/CXC/MIT/S Rappaport et al; Optical: Nasa/STScI$

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Space odyssey

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