NGC 3603
| Emissionsnebel und offener Sternhaufen | |
|---|---|
| NGC 3603 | |
 | |
| Infrarotaufnahme mithilfe des Teleskops VISTA | |
| Sternbild | Kiel des Schiffs |
| Position Äquinoktium: J2000.0 | |
| Rektaszension | 11h 15m 06,6s[1] |
| Deklination | −61° 15′ 40″[1] |
| Weitere Daten | |
| Helligkeit (visuell) | +9,1 mag[2] |
| Winkelausdehnung | 4' × 4'[2] |
| Entfernung | |
| Zugehörigkeit | |
| Klassifikation | I1pn[2] |
| Durchmesser | 20 Lj |
| Geschichte | |
| Entdeckung | John Herschel |
| Datum der Entdeckung | 14. März 1834 |
| Katalogbezeichnungen | |
| NGC 3603 • ESO 129-SC016 • OCL 854 • h 3334 • GC 2354 | |
| AladinLite | |
NGC 3603 ist ein Emissionsnebel im Sternbild Kiel des Schiffs, der etwa 22.000 Lichtjahre von der Erde entfernt ist. NGC 3603 befindet sich im Sagittarius-Carina-Arm unserer Milchstraße und ist etwa 26.000 Lichtjahre vom Zentrum unserer Galaxie entfernt, etwa gleich weit wie unsere Sonne.
NGC 3603 ist ebenfalls ein offener Sternhaufen, welcher die größte bekannte Häufung von Riesensternen, sogenannte Wolf-Rayet-Sterne, in unserer Milchstraße aufweist. Dieser Sternhaufen ist ein sehr aktives H-II-Gebiet mit sehr jungen Sternen, die etwa 2 Millionen Jahre alt sind. Zum Vergleich: unsere Sonne ist etwa 4,6 Milliarden Jahre alt.
Etwas abseits des offenen Sternhaufens befindet sich der massereiche Stern Sher 25. Auf dem Bild von Hubble rechts oberhalb des Sternhaufens mit einem sichtbaren Ring. Sher 25 ist im Endstadium seines Sternenlebens und wird in einigen 1000 Jahren als Supernova explodieren.
Der Emissionsnebel NGC 3603 wurde am 14. März 1834 vom britischen Astronomen John Herschel entdeckt.[4]
2007 wurde im Emissionsnebel NGC 3603 der bislang einzige Stern entdeckt, dessen Masse mit hoher Genauigkeit zu mehr als 100 Sonnenmassen bestimmt werden konnte. Er wurde von kanadischen Astronomen mit Hilfe des Hubble-Teleskops und der Europäischen Südsternwarte gefunden und kommt auf ein Gewicht von 114 Sonnenmassen.[5] Er bildet mit einem 84 Sonnenmassen schweren Stern ein Doppelsternsystem (NGC 3603 A1). Für ein weiteres Paar von Sternen (WR 20a) wurden jeweils rund 80 Sonnenmassen berechnet.
Sternhaufen und umliegender Emissionsnebel von NGC 3603 aufgenommen vom Hubble-Weltraumteleskop
Panoramaaufnahme von NGC 3603 (links) zusammen mit NGC 3576
Weblinks
- ESO: Vorhang auf für junge Sterne +Fotos & Animationen – 3. Februar 2010
- GoBlack
- University of Washington - Single Hubble picture captures key phases in the stellar life cycle
- ISSI Publikation Spatium Nr. 6: From Dust to Planets (PDF-Datei; 678 kB)
- Antilhue - Chile
- Capella Observatory
- NGC 3603: From Beginning To End – Astronomy Picture of the Day vom 4. Juni 1999 (englisch).
- Sher 25: A Pending Supernova? – Astronomy Picture of the Day vom 12. August 1997 (englisch).
Einzelnachweise
- ↑ NASA/IPAC EXTRAGALACTIC DATABASE
- ↑ a b c SEDS: NGC 3603
- ↑ Vorhang auf für junge Sterne. ESO, 3. Februar 2010, abgerufen am 27. Oktober 2019.
- ↑ Seligman
- ↑ Bislang schwerster Brocken: Astronomen entdecken Rekord-Stern. In: Spiegel Online. 9. Juni 2007, abgerufen am 2. Mai 2020.
Auf dieser Seite verwendete Medien
Autor/Urheber: (Credit) ESO/VVVX survey, Lizenz: CC BY 4.0
Crop of NGC 3603 from:
The image shows two cosmic clouds of purple with a golden orange glow towards their centres. The clouds are found separated from each other on each side of the image. The clouds stand out against a black background with a myriad of stars.
This Picture of the Week shows a new view of NGC 3603 (left) and NGC 3576 (right), two stunning nebulas imaged with ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). This infrared image peers through the dust in these nebulas, revealing details hidden in optical images.
NGC 3603 and NGC 3576 are 22,000 and 9,000 lightyears away from us, respectively. Inside these extended clouds of dust and gas, new stars are born, gradually changing the shapes of the nebulas via intense radiation and powerful winds of charged particles. Given their proximity, astronomers have the opportunity to study the intense star formation process that is as common in other galaxies but harder to observe due to the vast distances.
The two nebulas were catalogued by John Frederick William Herschel in 1834 during a trip to South Africa, where he wanted to compile stars, nebulas and other objects in the sky of the southern hemisphere. This catalogue was then expanded by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888 into the New General Catalogue, hence the NGC identifier in these and other astronomical objects.
Credit:
ESO/VVVX survey
Coordinates Position (RA): 11 13 36.50 Position (Dec): -61° 15' 12.43" Field of view: 51.50 x 28.96 arcminutes Orientation: North is 7.6° right of vertical
Colours & filters Band Telescope Infrared J 1.25 μm Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy VIRCAM Infrared H 1.65 μm Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy VIRCAM Infrared K 2.15 μm Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy VIRCAM.
Autor/Urheber: ESO/G. Beccari, Lizenz: CC BY 4.0
A Spectacular Landscape of Star Formation
This image, captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. The first is of these, on the left, is dominated by the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20 000 light-years away, in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The second object, on the right, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576 that lies only about half as far from Earth.
NGC 3603 is a very bright star cluster and is famed for having the highest concentration of massive stars that have been discovered in our galaxy so far. At the centre lies a Wolf–Rayet multiple star system, known as HD 97950. Wolf–Rayet stars are at an advanced stage of stellar evolution, and start off with around 20 times the mass of the Sun. But, despite this large mass, Wolf–Rayet stars shed a considerable amount of their matter due to intense stellar winds, which blast the star’s surface material off into space at several million kilometres per hour, a crash diet of cosmic proportions.
NGC 3603 is in an area of very active star formation. Stars are born in dark and dusty regions of space, largely hidden from view. But as the very young stars gradually start to shine and clear away their surrounding cocoons of material they become visible and create glowing clouds in the surrounding material, known as HII regions. HII regions shine because of the interaction of ultraviolet radiation given off by the brilliant hot young stars with the hydrogen gas clouds. HII regions can measure several hundred light-years in diameter, and the one surrounding NGC 3603 has the distinction of being the most massive in our galaxy.
The cluster was first observed by John Herschel on 14 March 1834 during his three-year expedition to systematically survey the southern skies from near Cape Town. He described it as a remarkable object and thought that it might be a globular star cluster. Future studies showed that it is not an old globular, but a young open cluster, one of the richest known.
NGC 3576, on the right of the image, also lies in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way. But it is located only about 9000 light-years from Earth — much closer than NGC 3603, but appearing next to it in the sky.
NGC 3576 is notable for two huge curved objects resembling the curled horns of a ram. These odd filaments are the result of stellar winds from the hot, young stars within the central regions of the nebula, which have blown the dust and gas outwards across a hundred light-years. Two dark silhouetted areas known as Bok globules are also visible in this vast complex of nebulae. These black clouds near the top of the nebula also offer potential sites for the future formation of new stars.
NGC 3576 was also discovered by John Herschel in 1834, making it a particularly productive and visually rewarding year for the English astronomer.
Open star cluster and nebula NGC 3603 by Hubble Space Telescope (ACS).