The Swan Nebula, also known as the Omega, didn’t always have its neck-like shape.
New observations from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) reveal the backstory of the Swan Nebula and how its regions formed separately during different star birth periods. The dreamy SOFIA image above is helping scientists map out the past of this gorgeous nebula.
“The present-day nebula holds the secrets that reveal its past; we just need to be able to uncover them,” said Wanggi Lim from the SOFIA Science Center. “SOFIA lets us do this, so we can understand why the nebula looks the way it does today.”
This view shows nine protostars—areas where the Swan Nebula’s clouds are falling apart and developing the first step in the birth of stars, and they didn’t show up in previous observations. This image enabled the team to determine the ages of the Swan Nebula’s different regions and they discovered that sections of the neck-like shape were not formed at the same time.
It’s likely that the Swan Nebula’s central region formed first. The northern region followed later on, while the southern region is the youngest out of the three. Radiation and stellar winds from older stars have disturbed material in the northern region, causing it to not collapse and develop the next generation of stars.
Unveiling the secrets of the Swan Nebula 🦢
This new image from @sofiatelescope is helping scientists chronicle the evolution of this awe-inspiring nebula, which only came to resemble the shape of a swan’s neck relatively recently. https://t.co/1eaD3VrVZN pic.twitter.com/q4iPmf3tq4
— NASA (@NASA) January 7, 2020
Located more than 5,000 light-years away, the Swan Nebula is not easy to spot in our galaxy: At the heart of the nebula are more than 100 of the galaxy’s biggest young stars. This area features cocoons of dust and gas that are hard to see with space telescopes. SOFIA’s FORCAST [Faint Object Infrared Camera] can get through these cloudy areas though and help us learn more about the Swan Nebula.
“This is the most detailed view of the nebula we have ever had at these wavelengths,” said Jim De Buizer, a senior scientist also at the SOFIA Science Center. “It’s the first time we can see some of its youngest, massive stars, and start to truly understand how it evolved into the iconic nebula we see today.”
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