Pretty Space Pics: The Dragonfish, a Crowded Cluster of Super-Massive Stars

By Clay Dillow Posted 12.08.2011 at 4:00 pm 8 Comments

The Dragonfish NASA/JPL-Caltech/GLIMPSE Team/Mubdi Rahman via SPACE

Today in pretty space pics: Using the Spitzer Space Telescope’s knack for infrared imagery, astronomers have snapped an image of the most crowded grouping of supermassive stars ever spotted in the Milky Way. Dubbed the “Dragonfish,” the cluster of stars, gas, and dust contains hundreds of the largest class of stars, most dozens of times larger than the sun.

The region takes its name from the huge hollow space blown out of the huge cloud of super-heated gas (glowing red in the image) that somewhat resembles the toothy maw of the dragonfish. The gap is something like 100 light-years across.

But more remarkable is that we can see the Dragonfish at all. We peer at star nurseries in other galaxies all the time. But it’s really difficult to turn our eyes inward and get a good look at regions within our own galaxy because interstellar dust obscures our view. In fact, the stars you see here are huge and very, very bright, yet they don’t appear as brilliant as some of the stars in other images regular readers have seen here for exactly this reason.

Thanks to Spitzer’s IR eyes, the University of Toronto team that captured this image was able to peer through the cosmic fog and get a pretty good look at the architecture of one of the most interesting stellar regions in our own galaxy. Click on through to SPACE below for more detail and a super-hi-res look at the above.

[SPACE]

Previous Article: Should Video Games Adhere to International Humanitarian Law?

Next Article: Video: Iran Puts Its Captured RQ-170 Drone on Display

8 Comments

Link to this comment

drchuck1

12/08/11 at 4:54 pm

pretty, cheers

Link to this comment

Eric18

12/08/11 at 10:46 pm

I was hoping some of you would look at this article on yahoo and tell me what you think...... Maybe popsci could do some investigating on this..... Hopefully
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mysterious-planet-sized-object-spotted-near-mercury-154443870.html

Link to this comment

Eric18

12/09/11 at 4:19 am

Its not the shadow but the thing that absorbs the energy to the right of the shadow, that glows when hit.... did you watch the video??? I looks like an Oval when hit by the energy. I don't know how this could be explained when we can only see it when hit by energy, which would suggest cloaking tech. and I don't think we have something like that yet?????

Link to this comment

pheonix1012

12/09/11 at 12:20 pm

Seems to me a significant amount of the known universe (if not galaxy) is much bigger than we are. Stars of 12 solar masses. There was another picture article talking of a stellar region with stars of hundreds of solar masses. Most of the jovian planets we've discovered are super massive compared to Jupiter, and the candidates of terrestrial planets are 'Super Earths.' The first confirmed terrestrial exoplanet is twice as massive as this planet. Seems to me we might be the Aquillians (MIB reference) or Asgard (Stargate reference) of this galaxy. That is unless we start discovering these things on lower magnitudes than ours, and I'm not talking about white and brown dwarfs, neutron stars, and pulsars. Those are death knells to stars.

I LOVE STARPICS!!!

Link to this comment

Amateur-Hour

12/09/11 at 12:57 pm

@Eric18

A former astronaut on Foxnews (I know, I know. Those on the left please spare me the right wing neo-conservative, your pure evil speech) called it a video light artifact. He said that while he believes there's life other than ours out there, this particular video - especially when seen from the other satallite - is easily explainable as a light trick. Even if you take his input to be non-credible, think of how massive that ship would be. Something like an 1/8 the size of the planet Mercury? I think there life out there too but this one just seems a bit bogus to me. IMO.

Link to this comment

Amateur-Hour

12/09/11 at 12:59 pm

But attacking my grammar and spelling is completely acceptable! I hate it when I mess up like that...

Link to this comment

Eric18

12/10/11 at 1:00 am

@Amateur-Hour
I didn't even think of that...... thanks

Link to this comment

JediMindset

12/12/11 at 2:08 pm

i just love space pics. always make me happy

_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.

- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri

Popular Tags

Technology

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Technology

+ More Photo Galleries

June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.