Hubble Space Observatory took an amazing picture central region open cluster NGC 6530, which looks like a wall of swirling smoke. In such clouds of molecular interstellar gas and dust, stars are born, and planets around them. But these are not yet balls flying in their orbits, but protoplanetary disks made of gas, dust and stones, and they are called proplyd.
Proplids or protoplanetary disks – these embryos of planets – are found quite rarely. The vast majority of proplids have only been found in one region, the nearby Orion Nebula. Findings in other astronomical environments and conditions are necessary for a more complete understanding of the origin and evolution of proplids. The open cluster region NGC 6530 is one such alternate reality where there might be many protoplanetary disks around young stars.
Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 of the Hubble telescope allows take pictures in a wide range of light waves and captures the infrared range – the best that can be offered for searching for hot gaseous disks around the embryos of planets. There is no doubt that the James Webb telescope, which has more sensitive infrared cameras on board, will follow Hubble along this path.
The Hubble observations will be supplemented and expanded by the Webb observations. It won’t be long before Webb is sure to provide images of the most interesting regions of the open cluster NGC 6530 in even more impressive detail. Moreover, he will be able to look deeper into these clouds of “cosmic smoke” and see especially interesting details there.
If you notice an error, select it with the mouse and press CTRL + ENTER.