skip to main content

A hot, young… cluster

Discover the stunning Coronet cluster, just 400 light years away, featuring hot young stars captured by Spitzer and Chandra.

Written byPhil Plait
| 1 min read
Follow on GoogleGoogle News Preferred Source
Placeholder image

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news

Sign Up

OOooo, more pretty pictures! This is the Coronet cluster:

Placeholder image showing Earth from space with an alert icon and the message ‘This image is no longer available.’

The cluster is pretty close, about 400 light years away, and has many hot young stars in it (like the WB!). This image is a composite from Spitzer and Chandra: the red, green, and blue is infrared from Spitzer, and the purple is X-rays from Chandra. The hottest, youngest stars will be tinged purple; their youthful magnetic fields can heat up matter to millions of degrees, so they glow in X-rays. The diffuse purple stuff is dust scattering those X-rays. I don't have a lot of astronomical insight into this one, but sometimes pretty pictures are OK all by themselves.

Meet the Author

Stay Curious

JoinOur List

Sign up for our weekly science updates

View our Privacy Policy

SubscribeTo The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Subscribe