Hubble Finds Intermediate

Jul 27, 2023

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a detailed image of the surroundings of the spectacular protostellar object OH 339.88-1.26.

The dark vertical streak at the center of this Hubble image hides the protostellar object OH 339.88-1.26. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Tan.

OH 339.88-1.26, otherwise known as IRAS 16484-4603, is located approximately 8,900 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ara.

“Winding lanes of dark dust thread through this image, which is also studded with bright stars crowned with criss-crossing diffraction spikes,” Hubble astronomers said.

“The dark vertical streak at the center of the image hides OH 339.88-1.26, which is an astrophysical maser.”

“A maser — which is an acronym for ‘microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation’ — is essentially a laser that produces coherent light at microwave wavelengths,” they explained.

“Such objects can occur naturally in astrophysical situations, in environments ranging from the north pole of Jupiter to star-forming regions such as the one pictured here.”

This new image of OH 339.88-1.26 was taken in the infrared region of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

The image comes from a set of Hubble observations that peer into the hearts of regions where massive stars are born to constrain the nature of massive protostars and test theories of their formation.

Four filters were used to sample various infrared wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.

“We turned to the WFC3 instrument to explore five intermediate-mass protostars at infrared wavelengths,” the astronomers said.

“The Hubble observations were supported by other state-of-the-art observatories including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).”

“ALMA is composed of 66 moveable high-precision antennas which can be arranged over distances of up to 16 km on a plateau perched high in the Chilean Andes.”

“Further data were contributed by NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which is a telescope that — until recently — operated out of a converted 747 aircraft.”