Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team
Rich colors spill across a tapestry of dust and gas in this image of the Rho Ophiuchi star cloud from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
Explore the arcs, folds and wrinkles in an image that resembles a painting. Your imagination should come up with lots of shapes and stories in this image. Tell us what you see in the image by leaving a note below.
The star cloud is named after a bright star in the region of the constellations Ophiuchus and Sagittarius. The nebula is one of the closest star-making regions to Earth allowing astronomers a clear look at the processes surrounding star birth. The pink stars near the center of the image are young stellar objects. In visible light, these stars are hidden from view. They are so young that they are still wrapped tightly in blankets of dust.
Explore a bit deeper in the image and you’ll find some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. M80, a distant globular cluster, is found on the far right of the image near the top. Another globular cluster known as NGC 6144 is found close to the bottom center of the image. They appear as tightly compacted groups of blue stars. Born soon after the universe formed, they are thought to be about 13 billion years old.
The bright white region in the center of the image glows with heating from nearby stars. Astronomers call this an emission nebula. Young, bright stars send out a blistering stream of ultraviolet radiation that excites the gas atoms in the nebula and causes them to glow like a neon sign. Most of the gas and dust in this image glows from that process including the blue arc of light just above the reddish nebula. The dust in the red region reflects light from the light of Sigma Scorpii. Astronomers call this type of nebula a reflection nebula. Throughout the image float cold, dark and dense clouds of dust. WISE sees the universe in infrared, seeing warm sources of light even in the darkest clouds. The orbiting telescope can usually penetrate these dark clouds but these are especially opaque to the satellite’s sensors meaning they are very cold. Astronomers call this type of interstellar cloud absorption nebulae.
The stunning array of color in this image represent different wavelengths of infrared light. Blue, cyan and the blue-green hues represent hot sources of light such as stars. The green and red color comes mostly from dust.
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