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    SOFIA Releases New Map of Orion’s Horsehead Nebula

    March 27, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Animation of SOFIA's Horsehead Nebula Map

    Animated map of Orion’s Horsehead Nebula showing 100 separate views in sequence. The yellow and white areas have the most intense radiation from carbon atoms. Credits: NASA/DLR/USRA/DSI/SOFIA/GREAT Consortium

    NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, has released a new map of the interstellar cloud called the Horsehead Nebula, in constellation Orion. This map is made of 100 separate views of the nebula, each mapping carbon atoms at different velocities. When combined, these different views create a multi-faceted representation of the nebula. Each location on this new SOFIA map of the nebula contains a far-infrared spectrum of the gas and dust there, allowing astronomers to examine the dynamics, chemistry, temperatures, and velocity within the nebula...

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    Why did the Pace of Star Formation in the Universe Slow Down some 11 billion years ago?

    March 24, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In an artist's conception, heated galactic wind shown in the hazy portion of the picture emanates from the bright quasar at the edge of a black hole, scattering dust and gas. If allowed to cool and condense, that dust and gas would instead begin to form stars. Credit: Johns Hopkins University

    In an artist’s conception, heated galactic wind shown in the hazy portion of the picture emanates from the bright quasar at the edge of a black hole, scattering dust and gas. If allowed to cool and condense, that dust and gas would instead begin to form stars. Credit: Johns Hopkins University

    Quasars slowed star formation new research shows. It appears intense radiation and galaxy-scale winds emitted by the quasars – the most luminous objects in the universe – heats up clouds of dust and gas. The heat prevents that material from cooling and forming more dense clouds, and eventually stars.

    They looked at information on 17,468 galaxies and found a tracer of energy called the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect...

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    Star Formation in Distant Galaxy Clusters

    February 15, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Star formation in distant galaxy clusters

    The galaxy cluster Abell 1689 as seen by Hubble. The mass in the cluster acts as a gravitational lens, distorting the light from background galaxies into blueish arcs of light. Abell 1689 is relatively close by, but astronomers have now spotted clusters in the early universe via their lensing of even more remote, luminous galaxies, and have studied the star formation underway in their outer regions. Credit: NASA, N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory), the ACS Science Team and ESA

    The first stars appeared ~100 million years after the big bang, and ever since then stars and star formation processes have lit up the cosmos, producing heavy elements, planets,...

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    Star Formation in the Outskirts of Galaxies

    February 8, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Star formation in the outskirts of galaxies

    Star formation in the outer spiral regions of the galaxy NGC 4625 is seen in ultraviolet light (blue); these arms are nearly invisible in optical light, but have hot, newborn stars that radiate in the UV. A new study finds that the star formation processes in these outer regions generally resemble the processes at work in more normal, denser regions where molecular gas abounds. The atomic gas is traced in the radio (purple); optical starlight is red. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Carnegie Observatories/WSRT

    Star formation environments can be roughly grouped into 3 types, categorized by the density of their gas (or more precisely, the projected “surface” density of the gas, which is easier to determine than volume density)...

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