NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室
NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Sherick
Explanation: NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This telescopic close-up spans about two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space
NGC 1333：英仙座的恒星育婴室
影像提供与版权: Michael Sherick
说明: 在可见光波段NGC 1333是个反射星云，其特征性的泛蓝色泽，是星际尘埃反射星光所致。此星云在英仙座方向，座落在一个庞大、正在诞生恒星的分子云之边缘，距离我们只有1,000光年远。这幅精采的特写影像，大约涵盖了2个满月宽度的天区，以NGC 1313的距离来换算，其跨幅略大于15光年。影像除了显现这个尘埃云的细微结构之外，还呈现了近期恒星诞生所造成的泛红赫比格·赫罗天体、喷流和激震辉光云气。NGC 1333拥有数百颗年龄不到1百万年的恒星，大多数受到广袤星尘的遮掩，光学望远镜基本上不得见。这个喧嚣的场合，可能和45亿年前我们太阳形成时的环境相近。
明日的图片: pixels in space
