{"id":34100,"date":"2011-04-17T15:42:56","date_gmt":"2011-04-17T15:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/the-cold-thin-glorious-line-of-star-birth-bad-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2011-04-17T15:42:56","modified_gmt":"2011-04-17T15:42:56","slug":"the-cold-thin-glorious-line-of-star-birth-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/the-cold-thin-glorious-line-of-star-birth-bad-astronomy.php","title":{"rendered":"The cold, thin, glorious line of star birth | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of May, 2010, the European Space Agency&rsquo;s orbiting Herschel telescope was pointed toward a dark cloud in space over 2500 light years away. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/esaSC\/SEMK0H7S9MG_index_1.html\">What it saw<\/a> may solve a bit of a scientific mystery&hellip; and is also truly beautiful: <\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/esamultimedia.esa.int\/images\/Science\/Herschel\/IC5146_080411_R500_G250Filaments_B70Filaments.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_herschel_ic5146.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"365\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30755\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p>[Click to ennebulanate.]<\/p><p>This object is called IC5146, and consists of the Cocoon nebula on the left, and two long streamers of gas extending to the right. Herschel is very sensitive to cold dust in the very far infrared; in this image blue shows gas and dust emitting at a wavelength of 70 microns (the reddest color the human eye can see is roughly 0.7 microns), green is 250 microns, and red 500 microns &mdash; that&rsquo;s over <em>700<\/em> times the longest wavelength light the eye can detect.<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.noao.edu\/outreach\/aop\/observers\/ic5146wide.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_noao_ic5146.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"211\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30758\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a>The Cocoon nebula is a well-known gas cloud being lit up by a massive, hot star in its center. In the visible light image inset here &mdash; <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.noao.edu\/outreach\/aop\/observers\/ic5146wideblock.jpg\">grab the stunning high-res version<\/a> to compare to the Herschel shot &mdash; the dust is dark, since it absorbs the kind ...<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/2UsWckRB1pgW8EKmmYuw9EZFfNs\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/2UsWckRB1pgW8EKmmYuw9EZFfNs\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_Z7GPF4NimaM\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/15097_zshxxzE2i-k\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of May, 2010, the European Space Agency&rsquo;s orbiting Herschel telescope was pointed toward a dark cloud in space over 2500 light years away. What it saw may solve a bit of a scientific mystery&hellip; and is also &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/the-cold-thin-glorious-line-of-star-birth-bad-astronomy.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}