More Exoplanets Discovered Around Gliese 667

This picture shows the sky around multiple star Gliese 667. The bright star at the center is Gliese 667 A and B, the two main components of the system, which cannot be separated in this image. Gliese 667C, the third component, is visible as a bright star, very close and just under A and B, still in the glare of these brighter stars. The very subtle wobbles of Gliese 667C, measured with high precision spectrographs including HARPS, revealed it is surrounded by a full planetary system, with up to seven planets.

Note that this image was assembled from two photographic plates taken years apart through different colored filters. During that time, the motion of the nearby stars Gliese 667AB and C was sufficient for them to appear doubled in this picture, with one red and one blue image of each star.

This picture also shows two regions of star formation, much further from Earth than Gliese 667. At the upper-left NGC 6357 is visible and towards the bottom of the picture NGC 6334 (The Cat’s Paw Nebula).

Photo credit: ESO

Note: For more information, see Three Planets in Habitable Zone of Nearby Star.

NGC 6357 - The Lobster Nebula

This image from ESO’s VISTA telescope captures a celestial landscape of vast, glowing clouds of gas and tendrils of dust surrounding hot young stars. This infrared view reveals the stellar nursery known as NGC 6357 in a new light. It was taken as part of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey, which is currently scanning the Milky Way in a bid to map our galaxy’s structure and explain how it formed.

Photo credit: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo

Note: For more information, see Sweeping the Dust from a Cosmic Lobster.

NGC 6357

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has taken the most detailed image so far of a spectacular part of the stellar nursery called NGC 6357. The view shows many hot young stars, glowing clouds of gas and weird dust formations sculpted by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds.

Photo credit: ESO

Note: For more information, see VLT Takes a Close Look at NGC 6357.