Reach for the Stars Objects
Carina-keel of the ship Argo
Carina Constellation info + images:
Part of the heavenly waters constellation group
Can be seen in the southern hemisphere.
Info:
Latin Name: Carina
English Name: Keel
Genitive: Carinae
Abbreviation: Car
Origin: de Lacaille (the discover is Nicholas Louis de Lacacaille)
Area: 494. 2 square degrees
Number of naked eye stars: 225
Bordering Constellations:
HD 95086
What is it: star
Age/Stage: 17 million years, pre-main sequence
Type: A type
Distance: 282 light years (86 parsecs)
Exoplanets: one known, HD 95086 b, gas giant discovered in 2013 via the direct imaging method.
System type: no known companions (it's single like our sun).
Name Info: Has HD at the beginning (meaning henry-draper catalog, which was published between 1918 and 1924)
Facts: People are most interested in its exoplanet. Its protoplanetary disk has four layers (hot, warm, cold, and halo). Gaseous CO2 in the outer disk implies that there are collisions between comets and planetesimals and things of the like.
Why is this an object: It’s very young, so it’s currently in early stage evolution.
NGC 3324
What is it: Open star cluster ->a loosely bound group of a few tens to a few hundred stars
Age: ~12 million years
Notes/facts: Massive stars are concentrated in the center, not dynamically relaxed (not at thermodynamic equilibrium). Located northeast of the carina nebula.
EM Spectrum: Infrared (b/c there’s so much dust)
Behind the Name: NGC stands for new general catalog, which includes nebulae and star clusters. Common name is Gabriela Mistral Nebula.
Why do we study it: home to many hot young stars that sadly probably prevent more star formation b/c they’re so hot.
Cygnus-the swan
V1057 Cygni
What is it: A binary system w/a variable star (specifically a FU Orionis variable/FUOR).
Where is it: Cygnus, 3,002./920 parsecs.
Why is it important: It’s still forming and it undergoes periodic brightening that is associated with accretion.
Exoplanets: No known exoplanets.
Type: F type
Lifespan: 2-4 billion years.
How old is it: Only a few million years.
What catalogue is it in/Behind the Name:
EM Spectrum: Visible or infrared.
What colour is it: Yellow-white.
Blue stragglers: v1057 Cygni has stolen matter from a nearby star and appears younger than it actually is. Leads to type ia supernova.
What does it mean to be an orion type variable: Size changes over time.
A note on proper motion: Negative motion means the star is getting closer to us. Positive motion means the stars is receding.
Is it the main star of it’s system: Nope.
What is the variable class and type: irregular/eruptive, orion type.
Dorado-the swordfish
Animal: The dolphinfish/swordfish.
Hemisphere: Southern.
Number of stars: 3 main stars.
Notable objects: Tarantula nebula (30 dorados), large Magellanic cloud.
Family + other members: Johann Bayer family of constellations, along with Apus, Chamaeleon, Grus, Hydrus, Indus, Musca, Pavo, Phoenix, Tucana, and Volans.
30 Doradus (Tarantula Nebula)
What is it: Nebula
Why is it important: Major star-forming region
Distance: 159,800 light years, Located in the Large Magellanic cloud.
Alter. Name: NGC 2070
Catalogue: The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, including galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae.
What does NGC mean: New General Catalogue
Date discovered: between 1751 and 1753.
Best section of the EM spectrum to view in: Infrared
Libra-The scales
Hemisphere: Southern hemisphere in the winter, northern hemisphere in the summer.
HD 141569
What is it: a star
Why is it important: It is a young main sequence star, so it has a lot of stellar evolution that is yet to occur.
Stage and age: It is young, but fully formed.
Distance from earth: 364 light years.
Type: HD 141569 is an isolated Herbig Ae/Be star of spectral class A2Ve.
What does HD stand for: Henry Draper
What catalogue is it found in: Henry Draper Catalogue
How is said catalog organized: The scheme is based on lines which are mainly sensitive to stellar surface temperatures rather than actual compositional differences, gravity, or luminosity.
Musca-the Fly
Hemisphere: Southern
Discoverer: Dutch navigators Keyser and de Houtman
Constellation group: Musca belongs to the Johann Bayer family of constellations, along with Apus, Chamaeleon, Dorado, Grus, Hydrus, Indus, Pavo, Phoenix, Tucana and Volans. Musca contains one star with known planets and has no Messier objects.
HD 100546
What is it: A star
What type is it: B8-A0
Age and stage: Pre-main sequence, 4.8 million years.
Why is it important: It is early in its development process, so it will give us an example of pre-main sequence to main sequence development.
Distance: 353 light-years (108 parsecs)
Other Names and why they have them: KR Muscae
Variable? If so what type: No.
Exoplanets: HD 100546 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a B-type star. Its mass is not well defined; it takes 249.2 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 53.0 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2014.
Ophiuchus-the serpent bearer
Discoverer: first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
Hemisphere: The constellation Ophiuchus, the snake bearer, is best seen in summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere.
Group and other members: Hercules family (also considered the thirteenth sign of the zodiac by some astronomers.
Important objects: Ophiuchus contains the second closest star to Earth, known as Barnard's star. It is a red dwarf star located only 6 light years away. With a magnitude of only 9.5, it is not an easy star to find with the naked eye. The brightest star in this constellation is Rasalhague with a visual magnitude of 2.07. It is a binary star system located about 48 light years from Earth. The second brightest star is Sabik with a magnitude of 2.43. It is also a binary star system. Sabik is about 88 light years away. Han is the third brightest star with a magnitude of 2.57. It is a blue subgiant star that lies 366 light years from our solar system.
Ophiuchus contains seven Messier objects, all of which are globular star clusters. These clusters contain tens of thousands of stars bound tightly by gravity. They orbit the galactic core of our Milky Way galaxy. The stars they contain are much older than the stars in the galactic disk. Other notable deep-sky objects in this constellation include the Little Ghost Nebula (NGC 6369), the Dark Horse Nebula, the Pipe Nebula, the Snake Nebula, the Twin Jet Nebula, and a dark molecular cloud known as Barnard 68. Most of these objects can only be seen with large telescopes.
Barnard 68
What is it: Molecular could/dark absorbent nebula/Bok Globule.
How far away is it: 500 light-years
Age: Thought to be less than a million years old.
Why is it important: Barnard 68 is one of the darkest objects in our region of the galaxy. It's a small cloud that absorbs the light of the stars behind it, so it looks like a dark “hole” in the Milky Way. In a couple of hundred thousand years, though, that void may shine with the warmth of newly forming stars. IT'S A STAR-FORMING REGION.
What does “Barnard” mean: The last name of the discoverer.
Alternate names: B68, ‘the dark cloud’
Who discovered it and when: Edward E. Barnard, 1919
What is the closest dark cloud to earth: Barnard 68.
Orion-the hunter
Hemisphere: Observers from the Northern Hemisphere can see it in the southwestern skies. In the Southern Hemisphere, Orion can be found in the northwestern skies.
Who discovered it: Christiaan Huygens
What constellation group is it in: Orion belongs to the Orion family of constellations, along with Canis Major, Canis Minor, Lepus and Monoceros.
FU Orionis
What is it: a pre–main-sequence star which displays an extreme change in magnitude and spectral type.
Specific FU Orionis: FU Orionis is a variable and binary star system in the constellation of Orion. First FU Orionis to be discovered.
Why is it important: provides a good example of variability in young stars
What does FU stand for: Doesn’t stand for anything, FU represents the type of variability the star exhibits and Orionis stands for its position in orion.
Important variability episodes: FU Ori's rise to fame began in 1937 when the star appeared from relative obscurity at 16th magnitude and brightened by a factor of over 100 in 100-200 days. Accompanying the phantom star was a bright nebulosity, which glowed as a reflection of light from the luminous star. After increasing by 6 magnitudes in a period of a year, FU Ori continued to linger around maximum magnitude, where it has resided in a high state along with its ghostly nebula association ever since.
When was it discovered and by whom: 1936, Lee Hartmann and Scott Jay Kenyon
Distance from the earth: 1,360 light years distant and is associated with the molecular cloud Barnard 35.
HOPS 383
What is it: Class 0 protostar.
What is a class 0 protostar: The first (proto)stellar objects observed after the collapse in prestellar cores
Age and stage: 100,000 years, protostar.
How far is it from the earth: about 1,400 light years from Earth
Why is it important: It is the first class-0 protostar discovered to have had an outburst, and as of 2020, the youngest protostar known to have had an outburst.
When was it discovered and by whom: Herschel Orion Protostar Survey team, was first reported in February 2015.
Why is it suprising that we discovered it and why did we discover it: Most protostars spend 150,000 years invisible to satellites, and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite (roman space telescope) astronomers were able to observe HOPS 383 as it got 35 times brighter from 2006 to 2008.
What does HOPS stand for: Herschel Orion Protostar Survey.
Messier 42
What is it: The nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas where vast numbers of new stars are being forged.
Why is it important: The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky and is among the most intensely studied celestial features.
Who discovered it and when: Christiaan Huygens, November 26, 1610
What is it also known as: The Orion Nebula.
How far is it from the earth: 1,344 light years.
Pegasus-The winged horse
Hemisphere: Pegasus appears in the Northern Hemisphere between September and January. It reaches its highest point in the sky around 10:00 pm on October 15. It can also be seen in the Southern Hemisphere, although it is not as visible there.
Constellation group: Pegasus belongs to the Perseus family of constellations, along with Andromeda, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cetus, Lacerta, Perseus, and Triangulum.
When was it discovered and by whom: It was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
Important objects: Pegasus contains a Messier object – Messier 15 (NGC 7078, Cumulo de Pegaso) – and has nine stars with confirmed planets.
Stephan’s Quintet
What is it: Stephan's Quintet is a visual grouping of five galaxies of which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered.
Why is it important: Rarely do scientists see in so much exquisite detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other, and how the gas in these galaxies is being disturbed. Stephan's Quintet is a fantastic “laboratory” for studying these processes fundamental to all galaxies.
When was it discovered and by whom: Édouard Stephan, 1877.
What galaxies are included in Stephan’s quintet: NGC 7317, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B, and NGC 7319, NGC 7320.
How do they interact in order to trigger star formation: The larger and more massive a galaxy, the greater the pull it will have on another galaxy. The effects are clearly visible in the warped galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet. Some of the strange forms created by interacting galaxies are short-lived, while some areas of a galaxy may be permanently separated, or small galaxies combined together. The collision of gas and other material in galaxies as a result of these interactions triggers bursts of bright star formation.
Are they in the Local Group: No.
Which galaxies impact the milky way in this fashion: Using machine learning, researchers show that a past collision with a dwarf galaxy changed the course of stellar evolution in the Milky Way. Stars that formed after the Milky Way collided with a galaxy called Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus contain less metal than those that predate the merger.
Is there a special name for the four that are clumped really close together: Hickson Compact Group 92 (HCG 92).
How old is it: Their ages span from about 2 million to more than 1 billion years old.
How far away from earth is it: 290 million light-years (90 million parsecs)
Perseus-The Greek hero.
Hemisphere: Perseus is located in the northern sky and is visible to most locations in the Northern Hemisphere and even some in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, from about 40 degrees latitude and above, the constellation is visible year-round, never setting below the horizon.
Group: Perseus belongs to the Perseus family of constellations, along with Andromeda, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cetus, Lacerta, Pegasus, and Triangulum.
When was it discovered and by whom: It was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
NGC 1333
What is it: NGC 1333 is a reflection nebula located in the northern constellation Perseus, positioned next to the southern constellation border with Taurus and Aries.
Why is it important: In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
When was it discovered and by whom: Eduard Schönfeld in 1855.
Common name: not applicable.
How old is it: ~1 million years
How far is it from the earth: approximately 960 light-years away.
What is a reflection nebula: clouds of interstellar dust which might reflect the light of a nearby star or stars.
Most of the infrared emission is happening in the southern part of the nebula. A significant portion of the stars seen in the infrared are in the pre-main sequence stage of their evolution.[6]
The nebula region has a combined mass of approximately 450 M☉,[4] while the cluster contains around 150 stars with a median age of a million years and a combined mass of 100 M☉. The average star formation rate is 1×10−4 M☉ yr–1.[4] Within the nebula are 20 young stellar objects producing outflows, including Herbig–Haro objects, and a total of 95 X-ray sources that are associated with known members of embedded star clusters.[6] In 2011 researchers reported finding 30 to 40 brown dwarf objects in the cloud and in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.[8]
Sextans-the sextant (measuring thingie)
Sextans is a minor equatorial constellation which was introduced in 1687 by Johannes Hevelius. Its name is Latin for the astronomical sextant, an instrument that Hevelius made frequent use of in his observations.
Baby Boom Galaxy
What is it: A galaxy
What kind of galaxy is it: a starburst galaxy and one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe.
What is a starburst galaxy: A starburst galaxy is one undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formation, as compared to the long-term average rate of star formation in the galaxy.
Who was it discovered by and when: Spitzer Science Center at CalTech.
How far away from the earth is it: 12.477 billion light years
Why is it important: It is undergoing a lot of star formation.
Other name: The Baby Boom Galaxy has been nicknamed "the extreme stellar machine" because it is seen producing stars at a rate of up to 4,000 per year (almost 11 stars per day).
What wavelength does it emit most of its light in: infrared.
Taurus-the bull
Hemisphere: Taurus is located in the first quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ1).
Who discovered it and when: Taurus is one of the 12 constellations of the zodiac, first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE.
Important objects: Taurus contains two Messier objects – Messier 1 (M1, NGC 1952, Crab Nebula) and Messier 45 (the Pleiades) – and has five stars that may have planets in their orbits. The brightest star in the constellation is Aldebaran, Alpha Tauri, with an apparent magnitude of 0.85.
Constellation group and other members: Taurus is a typical winter constellation located between the constellations Orion, Auriga, Eridanus, and Aries. Being crossed by the ecliptic–the projection of the Earth's orbit in the sky– it is one of the zodiacal constellations.
HL Tauri
What is it: HL Tauri (abbreviated HL Tau) is a young T Tauri star in the constellation Taurus.
What is a T Tauri star: T Tauri star,, any of a class of very young stars having a mass of the same order as that of the Sun. So called after a prototype identified in a bright region of gas and dust known as the Hind’s variable nebula, the T Tauri stars are characterized by erratic changes in brightness.
How far is it from the earth: 456.6 light years
What was it discovered by and when: 1982 survey identified HL Tauri as one of the most highly polarized T Tauri stars known, along with DG Tauri and V536 Aquilae. A gas disk was discovered by interferometric observation of carbon monoxide (CO) emissions in 1986.
Why is it important: Sun may have gone through a T Tauri stage as a young star, they represent an early stage in stellar evolution, having only recently been formed by the rapid gravitational condensation of interstellar gas and dust.
How old is it: its age is less than 100,000 years.
What probes study it: ALMA.
L1527
What is it: a class 0 protostar.
How far is it from the earth: 460 light-years.
When was it discovered and by whom: 2012, ALMA scientists.
Why is it important: It is a class 0 protostar, and we have very few examples of such objects.
How old is it: 300,000 years.
What are the classes of protostar? Define them: Observationally, the proto-stars are classified into classes 0, 1, and 2, according to the ratio of infrared to optical, amount of molecular gas around, inflow/outflow, etc. Class 0 proto-stars are highly obscured and have short time scales (corresponding to the stage b?); a few are known. The class 1 and 2 proto-stars are already living partly on nuclear energy (c and d); but the total luminosity is still dominated by gravitational energy.
NGC 1555
What is it: NGC 1555, sometimes known as Hind's Variable Nebula, Sh2-238 or HH 155, is a variable nebula 4 light-years across, illuminated by the star T Tauri.
What is a variable nebula: reflection nebulae that change in brightness because of changes in their star.
When was it discovered and by whom: The nebula was discovered on October 11, 1852 by John Russell Hind.
How far from the earth is it: 400 light-years
Why is it important: T Tauri is located within it, and it shows a stage of early stellar evolution.
How old is it: less than a few million years old.
Common name and alternate name: Hind’s Nebula, Sh2-238 or HH 155.
Is it a Herbig-Haro object? What is a Herbig-Haro object: Yes, Herbig–Haro (HH) objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars. They are formed when narrow jets of partially ionized gas are ejected by young stars.
Constellation: Taurus
T Tauri
What is it: The first young star discovered with a mass similar to the sun. An entire class of variable stars was named after it.
What are T Tauri stars: any of a class of very young stars having a mass of the same order as that of the Sun. So-called after a prototype identified in a bright region of gas and dust known as the Hind's variable nebula, the T Tauri stars are characterized by erratic changes in brightness.
Why is it important: It was the first of its kind, and now an entire type of variable stars is named after it.
When was it discovered and by whom: 1852, James Russel Hind.
How far from earth is it: 460 light years.
How old is it: about ten million years old.
Common name and alternate names: Sometimes referred to as TTS.
What does TTS stand for: T Tauri Star
Vela-the sails
Hemisphere: the Southern Hemisphere
When was it discovered and by whom: Constellation was first spotted and cataloged by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE but as part of the larger constellation called Argo Navis. Argo Navis was an ancient ship of Jason and the Argonauts.
Constellation group and other members: Vela belongs to the Heavenly Waters family of constellations, along with Carina, Columba, Delphinus, Equuleus, Eridanus, Piscis Austrinus, Puppis and Pyxis.
Important objects: Vela contains seven stars with known planets and has no Messier objects.
HH 46/47
What are they: HH 46/47 is a complex of Herbig–Haro objects (HH objects), located around 450 parsecs (about 1,470 light-years) away in a Bok globule near the Gum nebula.
What is a bok globule: A dark nebule.
When were they discovered and by whom: This object was discovered in 1977 by American astronomer, R. D. Schwartz.
Why are they named in this way: In accordance with the naming convention for HH objects, he named two nebulae he found HH 46 and HH 47, as they were the 46th and 47th HH objects to be discovered.
How far away from the earth are they: 450 parsecs (about 1,470 light-years)
How old are they: a few thousand years old.
What section of the em spectrum do they emit light in:
Why are they important: They are incredibly young examples of herbig-haro objects, and they allow a window into very early star formation.
RCW 38
What is it: RCW 38 is an HII region containing a massive star cluster located approximately 5,500 light years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Vela (known as the Sails).
What is an HII region: a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized.
When was it discovered and by whom: It was discovered by Colin S. Gum
How old is it: It is roughly a few million years old, but this info is difficult to figure out. It was deduced by the ages of the stars that are forming there.
How far from the earth is it: 5500 light years
Why is it important: It is a star forming region, and it has some O type stars that are forming, rather than the sun-like pre-main sequence stars that we have studied in the past.
What does RCW stand for: Rogers, Campbell, and Whiteoak Catelog.
What are some alternate terms for RCW 38: Gum 41.
What did Colin S. Gum do: He compiled a catelog of HII regions known as the Gum Catelog of HII regions. RCW 38 is also known as Gum 41.
Volans-the flying fish
Hemisphere: Southern hemisphere
Constellation group: Volans belongs to the Johann Bayer family of constellations, along with Apus, Chamaeleon, Dorado, Grus, Hydrus, Indus, Musca, Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana.
Objects: Volans contains several notable deep sky objects, among them the Lindsay-Shapley Ring (AM0644-741), the Meathook Galaxy (NGC 2442), the spiral galaxy NGC 2397, and the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, one of the first targets of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
When was it discovered and by whom: Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman in the late 16th century.
J122051+491255
What is it: A green pea galaxy.
What is a green pea galaxy: A small galaxy that is green-blue in color, and is extremely luminous due to star formation occurring there.
Why is it important: It is a galaxy in which a lot of star formation is occurring.
What is special about it spectrally: It has much less oxygen than the milky way, which makes it one of the most chemically primitive galaxies discovered so far.
Alternate names: None 🙁
How far from earth is it: 170 million light-years away
Best spectrum of the EM spectrum to view in: UV.
When were green pea galaxies discovered and by whom: 2009, volunteers working on galaxy zoo.
