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.

Crediti:

ESO/Spitzer/NASA/JPL/S. Kraus

A proposito dell'immagine

Identificazione:eso1029c
Tipo:Osservazione
Data di pubblicazione:Mercoledì 14 Luglio 2010 19:00
Notizie relative:eso1029
Dimensione:1425 x 1503 px

A proposito delll'oggetto

Nome:IRAS 13481-6124
Tipo:Milky Way : Star : Circumstellar Material : Disk
Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar Object
Distanza:10000 Anni luce
Constellation:Centaurus
Categoria:Stars

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Coordinate

Position (RA):13 50 48.49
Position (Dec):-61° 45' 41.77"
Field of view:28.98 x 30.57 arcminutes
Orientazione:Il Nord è a 0.3° a destra della verticale

Colori e filtri

BandaLunghezza d'ondaTelescopio
Infrarosso
Near-IR
3.6 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarosso
Mid-IR
4.5 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarosso
Mid-IR
5.8 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)
Infrarosso
Mid-IR
8.0 μm Spitzer Space Telescope
IRAC (Spitzer)