Dragonfish Nebula

rdf:langString Dragonfish Nebula

rdf:langString Dragonfish Nebula

rdf:langString Infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope

rdf:langString GAL 298.4-00.4

rdf:langString emission

rdf:langString The Dragonfish Nebula, as it is known for its appearance on infrared images, is a massive emission nebula and star-forming region 30,000 light-years from the Sun in the direction of the constellation Crux, the Southern Cross. The Dragonfish Nebula gets its name from a giant toothy fish known as the deep-sea dragonfish. The giant stars in this nebula blow a bubble in the surrounding gas. This bubble is over 100 light-years long and forms the mouth of the dragonfish. The two largest and luminous stars, which form its eyes, are said to be newly formed stars. The stars heat up the surrounding gas, giving off infrared light. The Dragonfish Nebula contains some of the most massive stars in the Milky Way galaxy. This nebula was first discovered in 2010 by Mubdi Rahman and Norman Murray from the University of Toronto. They discovered a cloud of ionized gas which led them to suspect that it was formed from the radiation of nearby stars. Since then more than four hundred stars have been found and there is reason to believe that many smaller stars are hiding in the cluster. The ionized gas around this cluster produces more microwaves than most clusters in our galaxy, making the Dragonfish Nebula the brightest and most massive cluster discovered so far.

rdf:langString NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Toronto