仙女座的曾经之星和未来之星
(原标题: The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda)
2023-10-07
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，还显示了恒星未来的位置。巨大而美丽的仙女座星系M31是一个距离我们仅250万光年远的螺旋星系。来自天基和地面观测站的图像数据被结合在一起，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。由哈勃、斯巴鲁和梅奥尔望远镜拍摄的可见光显示了M31恒星现在的位置，以白色和蓝色调突出显示。红外线显示了M31的未来恒星将很快形成的地方，橙色的高亮显示，由美国宇航局的斯皮策太空望远镜拍摄。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，是未来恒星形成的原材料。当然，新的恒星可能会在未来的1亿年左右形成。这远远早于仙女座星系在大约50亿年后与我们的银河系合并。
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This picture of Andromeda shows not only where stars are now, but where stars will be. The big, beautiful Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years away. Image data from space-based and ground-based observatories have been combined here to produce this intriguing composite view of Andromeda at wavelengths both inside and outside normally visible light. The visible light shows where M31's stars are now, 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, 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, raw material for future star formation. Of course, the new stars will likely form over the next hundred million years or so. That's well before Andromeda merges with our Milky Way Galaxy in about 5 billion years.