Protostar IRAS 20324+4057

This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar on its way to a feast. But the meat of the story is not only what this cosmic caterpillar eats for lunch, but also what's eating it. Harsh winds from extremely bright stars located 15 light-years away from the knot towards the right edge of the image, are blasting ultraviolet radiation at this "wanna-be" star and sculpting the gas and dust into its long shape.

The caterpillar-shaped knot, called IRAS 20324+4057, is a protostar in a very early evolutionary stage. It is still in the process of collecting material from an envelope of gas surrounding it.

This image is a composite of Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) data taken in green and infrared light in 2006, and ground-based hydrogen data from the Isaac Newton Telescope in 2003, as part of the IPHAS H-alpha survey. The object lies 4500 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan).

Image credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and IPHAS

Cygnus OB2

Cygnus OB2: A star cluster about 5,000 light years from Earth that contains many massive young stars.

This composite image of the star cluster Cygnus OB2 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue), infrared data from Spitzer (red), and optical emission from the Isaac Newton Telescope (orange). Astronomers would like to better understand how this and other star factories like it form and evolve. Deep observations with Chandra have been used to detect the hot outer atmosphere for young stars in such clusters. Cygnus OB2 is the closest massive star cluster to Earth, and Chandra's observations revealed almost 1,500 X-ray sources there. Astronomers think these young stars in Cygnus OB2 range in age from one million to seven million years.

Scale: Image is: 11.8 arcmin across (16 light years).

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.Drake et al, Optical: Univ. of Hertfordshire/INT/IPHAS, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see Cygnus OB2: Probing a Nearby Stellar Cradle.