August 11, 2005
On the day you were born, another consciousness opened inside the cosmos and began taking notes.
Young Suns of NGC 7129
Birthday · August 11, 2005
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published August 11, 2005. Credit: Robert Gendler. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129, some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus. While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only about a million years old, it is likely that our own Sun formed in a similar stellar nursery some five billion years ago. Most noticeable in the striking image are the lovely bluish dust clouds that reflect the youthful starlight, but the smaller, deep red crescent shapes are also markers of energetic, young stellar objects. Known as Herbig-Haro objects, their shape and color is characteristic of glowing hydrogen gas shocked by jets streaming away from newborn stars. Ultimately the natal gas and dust in the region will be dispersed, the stars drifting apart as the loose cluster orbits the center of the Galaxy. NGC 7129 is about 10 light-years across. Watch: the Perseid Meteor Shower
Image credit: Robert Gendler