'Snake' on the Milky Way

Something scary seems to be crawling on our galaxies in a new Halloween photograph taken by NASA's Spitzer space telescope. This snake-like object is actually the central part of a thick, soot cloud that is so big that it can swallow a dozen solar systems.

The object looks like a snake on the Milky Way.
(Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

In fact, astronomers say that the snake's " belly " may be a place to hide giant stars during the formation process.

'This snake is an ideal place for astronomers to look for massive star-forming stars,' said Dr. Sean Carey, also known as Dr. ' Scarey ' of the Science Center. Spitzer Nasa said. He is the head of this new research and also the main ' investigator ', studying earlier Halloween photos from the Spitzer space telescope, a photo of 'a vampire on the galaxy' looking very impressive.

The Spitzer space telescope has discovered a cloud containing a winding ' vampire object ' using focal parts to record infrared . Because objects with a temperature of a few hundred degrees K, the maximum black body radiation is usually within the infrared band, so infrared telescopes will help observe observing warm and distant objects, especially in the dark night, when no infrared radiation of the sun interferes. Meanwhile, the optical telescope will not see the ' vampire ' object hiding in the dusty surface of this galaxies.

Because that vampire object is warm and its infrared light can hide into thick dusty clouds, it only ' appears ' on infrared images taken by the Spitzer telescope. This cloud is so thick, dusty that if you somehow managed to get into its central area, you would see nothing but a black one, not even taking a star in the sky.

This new ' snake ' image of the Spitzer telescope has enabled scientists to see clearly what hides inside the cloud. The yellow and orange dots lying on and around the snake are giant stars that are only in the early stages of formation. The light red dot on the snake's abdomen is a giant star ' embryo ', which is 20 to 50 times the size of the sun.

Astronomers say these observations are the foundation for them to better understand how giant stars form . By studying the assembly and arrangement of ' star embryos ' blocks, astronomers hope to know whether these stars are formed in the same way that our sun, the object whether the size is small compared to these stars, formed or not - is caused by collapsed cloud of clouds and gas or by another mechanism, a mechanism by which external factors play a major role than.

This snake-like object is located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.

This pseudo-color image is a composite of infrared data captured by the Spitzer telescope's infrared camera and photometer with multiple wavelengths. Blue represents light at a wavelength of 3.6 micrometers, blue indicates light with a wavelength of 8 mcromet and red is 24 micrometers.