Astronomy Picture of the Day——NGC 1333：英仙座内的恒星孕育场
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NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Milne,Barry Wilson - Processing: Steve Milne
Explanation: NGC 1333 is seen in visiblelight as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic ofstarlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distanttoward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large,star-forming molecular cloud. This striking close-up spans about two full moonson the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333.It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty redemission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating fromrecently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than amillion years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasivestardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sunformed over 4.5 billion years ago.
NGC 1333：英仙座内的恒星孕育场
NGC1333在可见光下被认为是反射星云，其特有的泛蓝色光芒主要因为受到星际尘埃反射的星光。该星云位于英仙座方向，在一个巨大产星分子云的边缘，距离我们仅1千光年。这幅引人注目的特写影像覆盖了大约两个满月的天区，以NGC1333的估计距离来算，刚好超过15光年。该影像除了显示尘埃区域的细致结构之外，还呈现了赫比格天体反差鲜明的红色辐射，以及由最近诞生恒星发出炽热气体的喷流。实际上，NGC1333包含数百颗年龄不足100万年的恒星，其中大多数仍然被广阔的星尘所挡，因而无法被光学望远镜探查到。这种混沌的环境可能与太阳在45亿年前形成时的环境类似。
近期文章：
Astronomy Picture of the Day——御夫座AE星与火焰星星云