仙女座的曾经之星和未来之星
(原标题: The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda)
2022-05-23
浏览次数: 16
这张仙女座的照片不仅显示了恒星现在的位置，还显示了恒星即将出现的位置。当然，大而美丽的仙女座星系M31是一个螺旋星系，距离我们只有250万光年。天基和地面天文台在这里结合起来，在正常可见光的内部和外部波长上，产生了这张有趣的仙女座合成图像。可见光显示了M31恒星现在的位置——由哈勃、斯巴鲁和梅奥尔望远镜拍摄的白色和蓝色调的高亮部分。红外光显示了M31的未来恒星将很快形成的地方——由美国宇航局的斯皮策太空望远镜拍摄的橙色突出显示。红外光追踪着巨大的尘埃带，被恒星加热，沿着仙女座的旋臂扫过。这些尘埃是银河系巨大的星际气体的示踪剂，而星际气体是未来恒星形成的原材料。这些新恒星很可能在未来的1亿年内形成，肯定在仙女座星系与我们的银河系合并之前，大约50亿年后。
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This picture of Andromeda shows not only where stars are now, but where stars will soon be. Of course, the big, beautiful Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a spiral galaxy -- and a mere 2.5 million light-years away. Both space-based and ground-based observatories have been here combined to produce this intriguing composite image of Andromeda, at wavelengths both inside and outside normally visible light. The visible light shows where M31's stars are now -- as highlighted in white and blue hues and imaged by the Hubble, Subaru, and Mayall telescopes. The infrared light shows where M31's future stars will soon form -- as highlighted in orange hues and imaged by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared light tracks enormous lanes of dust, warmed by stars, sweeping along Andromeda's spiral arms. This dust is a tracer of the galaxy's vast interstellar gas -- the raw material for future star formation. These new stars will likely form over the next hundred million years, surely well before Andromeda merges with our Milky Way Galaxy in about 5 billion years.