File:A Hole in the Sky.jpg
Original file (8,748 × 8,418 pixels, file size: 50.77 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Summary
[edit]DescriptionA Hole in the Sky.jpg |
English: Rather than showing spectacular objects, some of the most surprising images of the Universe instead focus on emptiness. This new image from the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope shows dark tentacles swirling outwards from a dark, blank spot of space in the centre of the frame, particularly conspicuous against the dense peppering of bright gold and red stars across the rest of the image.
This region is not a hole in the cosmos, or an empty patch of sky. The dark lanes are actually made up of thick, opaque dust lying between us and the packed star field behind it. This obscuring dust forms part of a dark molecular cloud, cold and dense areas where large quantities of dust and molecular gas mingle and block the visible light emitted by more distant stars. It is still unclear how these clouds form, but they are thought to be the very early stages of new star formation — in the future, the subject of this image may well collapse inwards on itself to form a new star system. Although the cloud in this image is a fairly anonymous resident of the nearby Universe — catalogued as LDN1774 — one of the most famous examples of a molecular cloud is the very similar Barnard 68, which lies some 500 light-years away from us. Barnard 68 has been observed extensively using ESO telescopes, both in visible (eso9924a) and infrared light (eso9934, eso0102a). As shown in these different images, it is possible to probe through dark cosmic dust using infrared light, but visible-light observations such as those shown in this VLT image cannot see beyond the smokescreen. This image was taken by the Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on ESO’s 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile. |
Date | |
Source | http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1518a/ |
Author | ESO |
Licensing
[edit]This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Their website states: "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible." To the uploader: You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available. | |
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
|
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 10:55, 14 February 2024 | 8,748 × 8,418 (50.77 MB) | C messier (talk | contribs) | full size | |
16:48, 8 June 2015 | 1,280 × 1,232 (986 KB) | Jmencisom (talk | contribs) | User created page with UploadWizard |
You cannot overwrite this file.
File usage on Commons
The following page uses this file:
- File:A Hole in the Sky (16777231043).jpg (file redirect)
File usage on other wikis
The following other wikis use this file:
- Usage on af.wikipedia.org
- Usage on ar.wikipedia.org
- Usage on bjn.wikipedia.org
- Usage on el.wikipedia.org
- Usage on en.wikiversity.org
- Usage on hi.wikipedia.org
- Usage on mk.wikipedia.org
- Usage on ms.wikipedia.org
- Usage on sr.wikipedia.org
- Usage on sv.wikipedia.org
Metadata
This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.
Credit/Provider | ESO |
---|---|
Source | European Southern Observatory |
Short title |
|
Image title |
|
Usage terms |
|
Date and time of data generation | 10:00, 4 May 2015 |
JPEG file comment | Rather than showing spectacular objects, some of the most surprising images of the Universe instead focus on emptiness. This new image from the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope shows dark tentacles swirling outwards from a dark, blank spot of space in the centre of the frame, particularly conspicuous against the dense peppering of bright gold and red stars across the rest of the image. This region is not a hole in the cosmos, or an empty patch of sky. The dark lanes are actually made up of thick, opaque dust lying between us and the packed star field behind it. This obscuring dust forms part of a dark molecular cloud, cold and dense areas where large quantities of dust and molecular gas mingle and block the visible light emitted by more distant stars. It is still unclear how these clouds form, but they are thought to be the very early stages of new star formation — in the future, the subject of this image may well collapse inwards on itself to form a new star system. Although the cloud in this image is a fairly anonymous resident of the nearby Universe — catalogued as LDN1774 — one of the most famous examples of a molecular cloud is the very similar Barnard 68, which lies some 500 light-years away from us. Barnard 68 has been observed extensively using ESO telescopes, both in visible (eso9924a) and infrared light (eso9934, eso0102a). As shown in these different images, it is possible to probe through dark cosmic dust using infrared light, but visible-light observations such as those shown in this VLT image cannot see beyond the smokescreen. This image was taken by the Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on ESO’s 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile. |
Contact information |
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 Garching bei München, , D-85748 Germany |
IIM version | 4 |