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Related: About this forumThey may call this a "space lobster" but I'm calling it the FSM
A new image from ESOs VISTA telescope captures a celestial landscape of glowing clouds of gas and tendrils of dust surrounding hot young stars. This infrared view reveals the stellar nursery known as NGC 6357 in a surprising new light. It was taken as part of a VISTA survey that is currently scanning the Milky Way in a bid to map our galaxys structure and explain how it formed.
Located around 8000 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), NGC 6357 sometimes nicknamed the Lobster Nebula [1] due to its appearance in visible-light images is a region filled with vast clouds of gas and tendrils of dark dust. These clouds are forming stars, including massive hot stars which glow a brilliant blue-white in visible light.
This image uses infrared data from ESOs Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. It is just a small part of a huge survey called VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) that is imaging the central parts of the Galaxy (eso1242). The new picture presents a drastically different view to that seen in visible-light images such as the image taken with the 1.5-metre Danish telescope at La Silla as infrared radiation can penetrate much of the covering of dust that shrouds the object [2].
One of the bright young stars in NGC 6357, known as Pismis 24-1, was thought to be the most massive star known until it was found to actually be made up of at least three huge bright stars, each with a mass of under 100 times that of our Sun. Even so, these stars are still heavyweights some of the most massive in our Milky Way. Pismis 24-1 is the brightest object in the Pismis 24 star cluster, a bunch of stars that are all thought to have formed at the same time within NGC 6357.
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1309/
Behold the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Ramen!
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They may call this a "space lobster" but I'm calling it the FSM (Original Post)
n2doc
Feb 2013
OP
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)1. I see a great big question mark
Which, I think, is kind of neat.
formercia
(18,479 posts)2. Ramen
May you be touched by his Noodly Appendage.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)3. Ramen.
I have seen the glory of the noodley appendages.
Arggghhh.
lastlib
(23,288 posts)4. There's His noodly appendage!!
I can almost feel it touching me!
Blessed are the pasta-makers! May the Sauce be with you!
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)5. I cringe and grovel in fear at its might. Blessed be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Ramen.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)6. Cathulhu is not amused. nt