mick laBriola

The glowing red clouds seen in this Picture of the Week show dense gas regions where new stars are being born in the RCW 106 region. But only 1% of this gas will actually go on to create stars, and astronomers don’t know why this percentage is so low. We do know that star formation takes place when regions of these huge clouds of cold gas are able to clump together and eventually collapse into newborn stars, which happens at a critical density. But once we go past that density, do even denser regions produce even more stars, and could this help to explain the 1% mystery? New results from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (link accessible from 20 August), suggest this is not the case: denser regions are not more efficient at forming stars. This is perhaps explained by the way these denser clouds fragment into filamentary structures and cores out of which stars will form, but leaves many questions still to be answered. This Picture of the Week highlights these areas of interest. The image imposes a red map of dense gas, imaged with the ArTéMiS camera at APEX, over an optical image taken with the VLT Survey Telescope.  While APEX continues to investigate this stellar mystery, we can expect to see many more stunning images like this.

McKinley Howard “Kenny” Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and occasional singer. Dorham’s talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public recognition from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did. For this reason, writer Gary Giddins said that Dorham’s name has become “virtually synonymous with ‘underrated’.” Dorham also composed the jazz standard “Blue Bossa“, which was first recorded by his associate Joe Henderson.

Dorham was one of the most active bebop trumpeters. Early in his career, he played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Mercer Ellington, and in Charlie Parker‘s quintet. He joined Parker’s band in December 1948. He was a charter member of the original cooperative the Jazz Messengers. He also recorded as a sideman with Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, and he replaced Clifford Brownin the Max Roach Quintet after Brown’s death in 1956. In addition to sideman work, Dorham led his own groups, including the Jazz Prophets (formed shortly after Art Blakey took over the Jazz Messengers name). The Jazz Prophets, featuring a young Bobby Timmons on piano, bassist Sam Jones, and tenorman J. R. Monterose, with guest Kenny Burrell on guitar, recorded a live album, ‘Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia, in 1956 for Blue Note. During his final years, Dorham suffered from kidney disease, from which he died on December 5, 1972, aged 48.

Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view would span about 150 light-years. In the sharp color composite image faint details of the region’s gas and dust clouds are highlighted with narrowband image data against a backdrop of central Milky Way stars. The stellar winds and energetic radiation from hot, massive stars already formed from M17’s stock of cosmic gas and dust have slowly carved away at the remaining interstellar material, producing the nebula’s cavernous appearance and the undulating shapes within. A popular stop on telescopic tours of the cosmos, M17 is also known as the Omega or the Swan Nebula.

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009 Gary, IN) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the “King of Pop“, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres. Through stage and video performances, he popularized street dance moves such as the moonwalk, which he named, and the robot.

He was the eighth child of the Jackson family, and made his public debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5(later known as the Jacksons). The Jackson 5 signed with Motown in 1968 and achieved worldwide success with Michael as lead singer. Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown and recorded multiple successful singles. He became a global solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for “Beat It“, “Billie Jean“, and “Thriller” from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. He helped popularize MTV and continued to innovate with videos for his albums Bad(1987), Dangerous (1991), HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995), and Invincible (2001). Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, while Bad was the first album to produce five US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles.^{[nb 1]}

From the late 1980s, Jackson became a figure of controversy and speculation due to his changing appearance, relationships, behavior, and lifestyle. In 1993, he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found no evidence of criminal conduct by Jackson. In 2009, while he was preparing for a series of comeback concerts, This Is It, Jackson diedfrom an overdose of propofol administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter for his involvement in Jackson’s death. His death triggered reactions around the world, creating unprecedented surges of internet traffic and a spike in sales of his music. Jackson’s televised memorial service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was estimated to have been viewed by more than 2.5 billion people.

Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 500 million records worldwide. He had 13 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles(fourth highest of any artist in the Hot 100 era) and was the first artist to have a top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. His honors include 15 Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and 39 Guinness World Records, including the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time”. Jackson’s inductions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice), the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dance Hall of Fame (making him the only recording artist to be inducted) and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

The complex and beautiful Tulip Nebulablossoms about 8,000 light-years away toward the constellation of Cygnus the Swan. Ultraviolet radiation from young energetic stars at the edge of the Cygnus OB3 association, including O star HDE 227018, ionizes the atoms and powers the emission from the Tulip Nebula. Stewart Sharpless cataloged this nearly 70 light-years across reddish glowing cloud of interstellar gas and dust in 1959, as Sh2-101. Also in the featured field of view is the black hole Cygnus X-1, which to be a microquasar because it is one of strongest X-ray sources in planet Earth’s sky. Blasted by powerful jets from a lurking black hole, its fainter bluish curved shock front is only faintly visible beyond the cosmic Tulip’s petals, near the right side of the frame.