Astronomy Picture of the Day
探索宇宙！每天一幅不同的影像或照片，并由专业天文学家的简短解释和说明，带你遨游迷人的宇宙。
2006年4月20日（农历二〇〇六年三月二十三, 谷雨）
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0604/n281_hst_big.jpg
A Dust Cloud in NGC 281
Credit: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI / AURA) and P. McCullough (STScI)
Explanation: Stars themselves can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular clouds from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds. The heat they generate evaporates the dark molecular dust as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. Pictured above, a new open cluster of stars designated IC 1590 is nearing completion around the intricate interstellar mountain named NGC 281. The dust cloud NGC 281, dubbed the Pacman nebula because of its overall shape, is classified as a dense Bok Globule that lies about 10,000 light years distant.
NGC 281内的尘埃云
影像提供: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI / AURA) and P. McCullough (STScI)
解释：恒星本身能在创生他们的致密暗分子云中制造巨大和错综复杂的尘埃雕刻品。恒星们的精细雕刻工具是高能射线和快速的恒星风。他们使分子云蒸发所散发的热量对周围氢气的驱散和变红同样有效。在上面这幅图片里，在错综复杂的星际山脉NGC 281附近，一个编号为IC 1590的新疏散星团已接近完成。位于大约10，000光年之外的尘埃云NGC 281，因为它的总体外形是一个致密的包克云球，而被戏称为小精灵星云。(小精灵 -- Pacman是1980年代很风行的个人计算机游戏，首见于Apple II; 包克云球 -- Bok Globule)
Tomorrow's picture: open space
