Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.
Spitzer Space Telescope is 5 years old
Spitzer was launched Aug. 25, 2003, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The new infrared picture shows a colorful cosmic cloud, called W5, filled with multiple generations of stars.
NASA said the image also provides dramatic new evidence that massive stars -- through their brute winds and radiation -- can trigger the birth of stellar newborns.
"Triggered star formation continues to be very hard to prove," said Xavier Koenig of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "But our preliminary analysis shows that the phenomenon can explain the multiple generations of stars seen in the W5 region."
NASA said W5 spans an area of sky equivalent to four full moons and is about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.
Koenig is lead author of a paper about the finding in the Dec. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
This news arrived on: 08/25/2008
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Post Comment
Rate This Story:
Great - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Bad
Posted Comments:
Comment archive | Comment FAQ's
 |
 |
View Science & Technology ezine stories by date or visit the complete archive |
The ArcaMax Politics channel is one of 70 content categories offered by ArcaMax Publishing on this ... |
Body Mass
