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Star-Forming Region S106
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope presents a festive holiday greeting that's out of this world. The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched "wings" of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium.
Sharpless 2-106, Sh2-106 or S106 for short, lies nearly 2,000 light-years from us. The nebula measures several light-years in length. It appears in a relatively isolated region of the Milky Way galaxy.
A massive, young star, IRS 4 (Infrared Source 4), is responsible for the furious activity we see in the nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the "wings" of our angel.
A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an "hourglass" shape. Hubble's sharp resolution reveals ripples and ridges in the gas as it interacts with the cooler interstellar medium.
Dusky red veins surround the blue emission from the nebula. The faint light emanating from the central star reflects off of tiny dust particles. This illuminates the environment around the star, showing darker filaments of dust winding beneath the blue lobes.
Detailed studies of the nebula have also uncovered several hundred brown dwarfs. At purely infrared wavelengths, more than 600 of these sub-stellar objects appear. These "failed" stars weigh less than a tenth of our Sun. Because of their low mass, they cannot produce sustained energy through nuclear fusion like our Sun does. They encompass the nebula in a small cluster.
The Hubble images were taken in February 2011 with the Wide Field Camera 3. Visible narrow-band filters that isolate the hydrogen gas were combined with near-infrared filters that show structure in the cooler gas and dust.
About the Object
- R.A. PositionR.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.20h 27m 27.09s
- Dec. PositionDec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.37° 22' 39.0"
- ConstellationConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.Cygnus
- DistanceDistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.About 2000 light-years (600 parsecs)
- DimensionsDimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.The image is 2.9 arcminutes (1.7 light-years or 0.5 parsec) wide.
About the Data
- Data DescriptionData DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.The image was created from Hubble data from proposal 12326: K. Noll, Z. Levay, M. Livio, H. Bond, C. Christian, L. Frattare, M. Mutchler, and T. Borders (Hubble Heritage Team/STScI). - InstrumentInstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.HST>WFC3/UVIS and HST>WFC3/IR
- Exposure DatesExposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.February 12-13, 2011, Exposure Time: 1.3 hours
- FiltersFiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.WFC3/UVIS: F657N (H-alpha) WFC3/IR: F110W (J) and F160W (H)
- Object NameObject NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.S106, Sh2-106, Sharpless 2-106
- Object DescriptionObject DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.Star-Forming Region
- Release DateDecember 15, 2011
- Science ReleaseHubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel
- Credits
This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on HST. Several filters were used to sample broad and narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Red: F160W (H) Cyan: F110W (J) Blue: F657N (H-alpha)
Related Images & Videos
Hubble/Subaru Composite Image of Star-Forming Region S106
Hubble Space Telescope's high resolution combines with the Subaru Telescope's wide field-of-view to reveal a depiction of star-forming region S106 that is not possible from either telescope alone. The bipolar S106 shows bright gas in two distinct lobes. The faint stars located...
3D Look at a Star-Forming Region
This movie presents a visualization of the star-forming region known as S106. This unique three-dimensional view illustrates and emphasizes that many of the objects contained within astronomical images are not at the same distance, but, in fact, spread across light-years of...
Zoom to Star-Forming Region S106 (with music)
This video zooms in on star-forming region Sh2-106, also known as S106. This is a compact star-forming region in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). A newly formed star called S106 IR (also known as IRS 4) is shrouded in dust at the center of the image, and is responsible for...
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
