Spinning Top Star: Visible Light View

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About the Image

About the Object

Color Mapping

Band	Wavelength	Telescope
Optical	440 nm	DSS
Optical	700 nm	DSS
Optical	900 nm	DSS

About the Color Mapping Table

Astrometrics

Position (J2000): RA = 20^h 39^m 6.1^s; Dec = 68° 2' 16.0"
Field of View: 17.5 x 21.6 arcminutes
Orientation: North is 354.8° left of vertical
Constellation: Draco

Recent News

11.29.07

A rare, infrared view of a developing star and its flaring jets taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows us what our own solar system might have looked like billions of years ago. In visible light, this star and its surrounding regions are completely hidden in darkness.

Stars form out of spinning clouds, or envelopes, of gas and dust. As the envelopes flatten and collapse, jets of gas stream outward and a swirling disk of planet-forming material takes shape around the forming star. Eventually, the envelope and jets disappear, leaving a newborn star with a suite of planets. This process takes millions of years.

L1157 is located 800 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.

	May 16 Galaxy's Ring of Fire
	May 6 NASA's Spitzer Puts Planets in a Petri Dish
	April 3 A Confetti-Like Collection of Stars
	February 7 NASA Telescopes Discover Strobe-like Flashes
	January 8 NASA Telescopes See Weather Patterns in Brown Dwarf
	January 8 NASA, ESA Telescopes Find Evidence For Asteroid Belt Around Vega

	News Release Embryonic Star Captured with Jets Flaring ssc2007-19
	Image Spinning Top Star ssc2007-19a
	Video Pulling Back the Curtain of Dust ssc2007-19v1
	Video Protostellar Jets (Gallery Explorer) hiddenuniverse019

	May 16 Galactic Wheels within Wheels
	May 6 An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
	April 3 Taken Under the "Wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud
	March 19 Infant Stars Peek Out from Dusty Cradles
	February 8 Strobe-like Flashes Discovered in a Suspected Binary Protostar