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.

Credit:

ESO/Spitzer/NASA/JPL/S. Kraus

Over de afbeelding

Id:eso1029c
Type:Observatie
Publicatiedatum:14 juli 2010 19:00
Gerelateerde berichten:eso1029
Grootte:1425 x 1503 px

Over het object

Naam:IRAS 13481-6124
Type:Milky Way : Star : Circumstellar Material : Disk
Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar Object
Afstand:10000 lichtjaren
Constellation:Centaurus
Categorie:Stars

Afbeeldingstypen

Grote JPEG
1,2 MB

Inzoomen


Achtergrond

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

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

Kleuren & filters

BandGolflengteTelescoop
Infrarood
Near-IR
3.6 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarood
Mid-IR
4.5 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarood
Mid-IR
5.8 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarood
Mid-IR
8.0 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)