流向星宿二的暗星云之河

马达 · 发表于 2009-7-11 02:36:41

2009 July 8
The Dark River to Antares

Credit Copyright: Jason Jennings
Explanation:
Connecting the Pipe Nebula to the colorful region near bright starAntares is a dark cloud dubbed the Dark River, flowing from thepicture's left edge. Murky looking, the Dark River's appearance iscaused by dust obscuring background starlight, although the dark nebulacontains mostly hydrogen and molecular gas. Surrounded by dust,Antares, a red supergiant star, creates an unusual bright yellowishreflection nebula. Above it, bright blue double star Rho Ophiuchi isembedded in one of the more typical bluish reflection nebulae, whilered emission nebulae are also scattered around the region. Globularstar cluster M4 is just seen above and right of Antares, though it liesfar behind the colorful clouds, at a distance of some 7,000light-years. The Dark River itself is about 500 light years away. Thecolorful skyscape is a mosaic of telescopic images spanning nearly 10degrees (20 Full Moons) across the sky in the constellation Scorpius.

連接煙斗星雲(PipeNebula)和心宿二(Antares)之間的，是暱稱為暗河的流動雲氣，一路延伸至影像的左方。這條陰鬱的暗河是因為塵埃吸收了背景的星光所致，即使雲氣裡多半都是氫和分子氣體。深埋在塵埃之中的紅巨星心宿二，創造出異常的淡黃色星雲。在這之上的藍色反射星雲以及些許的紅色星雲之中，藍色雙星為心宿增四星(RhoOphiuchi)。位在這些五彩繽紛的星雲之後，心宿二的右方為球狀星團M4，距離約為7,000光年，暗河則是500光年左右。上方這張色彩繽紛的馬賽克影像，其視野橫跨天蠍座10度(約20個滿月)左右。