IRAS 13481-6124 and its cradle

The object IRAS 13481-6124 (the bright "star" upper left), which consists of a young central star, about twenty times the mass of our Sun and five times its radius, surrounded by its pre-natal cocoon, is the first massive baby star for which astronomers could obtain an image of a dusty disc closely encircling it, providing direct evidence that massive stars do form in the same way as their smaller brethren — and closing an enduring debate.

From archival images obtained by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope (seen here) as well as from observations done with the APEX 12-metre sub-millimetre telescope, astronomers discovered the presence of a jet, hinting at the presence of a disc. This was then confirmed by observations made with the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer.

Crédit:

ESO/Spitzer/NASA/JPL/S. Kraus

À propos de l'image

Identification:eso1029c
Type:Observation
Date de publication:14 juillet 2010 19:00
Communiqués de presse en rapport:eso1029
Taille:1425 x 1503 px

À propos de l'objet

Nom:IRAS 13481-6124
Type:Milky Way : Star : Circumstellar Material : Disk
Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar Object
Distance:10000 années lumière
Constellation:Centaurus
Catégorie:Stars

Image Formats

Grand JPEG
1,2 Mio
JPEG taille écran
578,1 Kio

Zoomable


Fonds d'écran

1024x768
552,2 Kio
1280x1024
833,3 Kio
1600x1200
955,1 Kio
1920x1200
1023,3 Kio
2048x1536
1,3 Mio

Coordinates

Position (RA):13 50 48.49
Position (Dec):-61° 45' 41.77"
Field of view:28.98 x 30.57 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.3° right of vertical

Couleurs & filtres

DomaineLongueur d'ondeTélescope
Infrarouge
Near-IR
3.6 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarouge
Mid-IR
4.5 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarouge
Mid-IR
5.8 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarouge
Mid-IR
8.0 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)