APEX image of a star-forming filament in Taurus

This image from the APEX telescope, of part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. In it, newborn stars are hidden, and dense clouds of gas are on the verge of collapsing to form yet more stars. The cosmic dust grains are so cold that observations at submillimetre wavelengths, such as these made by the LABOCA camera on APEX, are needed to detect their faint glow. This image shows two regions in the cloud: the upper-right part of the filament shown here is Barnard 211, while the lower-left part is Barnard 213.

The submillimetre-wavelength observations from the LABOCA camera on APEX, which reveal the heat glow of the cosmic dust grains, are shown here in orange tones. They are superimposed on a visible-light image of the region, which shows the rich background of stars. The bright star above the filament is φ Tauri.

Credit:

ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/A. Hacar et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin.

Over de afbeelding

Id:eso1209a
Type:Observatie
Publicatiedatum:15 februari 2012 12:00
Gerelateerde berichten:eso1209
Grootte:2984 x 3377 px

Over het object

Naam:Taurus Molecular Cloud
Type:Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Dark : Molecular Cloud
Afstand:450 lichtjaren
Constellation:Taurus
Categorie:Stars

Afbeeldingstypen

Grote JPEG
5,9 MB

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Achtergrond

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534,2 KB
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927,8 KB
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1,4 MB
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1,6 MB
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2,2 MB

Coordinates

Position (RA):4 19 21.54
Position (Dec):27° 22' 14.03"
Field of view:50.11 x 56.71 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.8° left of vertical

Kleuren & filters

BandGolflengteTelescoop
Optisch
B
Digitized Sky Survey 2
N/A
Optisch
Pseudogreen (B+R)
Digitized Sky Survey 2
N/A
Optisch
R
Digitized Sky Survey 2
N/A
Millimeter
Submillimetre
870 μmAtacama Pathfinder Experiment
LABOCA
Infrarood
I
Digitized Sky Survey 2
N/A