Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/NGC 602

NGC 602

NGC 602 is the designation for a particular young, bright open cluster of stars located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. Radiation and shock waves from the star cluster has pushed away much of the lighter surrounding gas and dust that compose the nebula known as N90, and this in turn has triggered new star formation in the ridges (or "elephant trunks") of the nebula. These even younger stars are still enshrouded in dust but are visible to the Spitzer Space Telescope at infrared wavelengths. A number of other, more distant galaxies also appear in the background of the image.

My God, it's full of stars!

Reason: Natural beauty
Articles this image appears in: NGC_602
Creator: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
Nominator: Flex (talk|contribs)

Support — Flex (talk|contribs) 20:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. As much as I like these NASA pictures, there are already a bunch of astronomy-related pictures here. JHMM13 20:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. While I don't mind that we have "a bunch" of similar pictures, this PARTICULAR one doesn't strike me as terribly exceptional. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 00:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support Yeah we got a bunch of astronomy-related images, but this one is easily on par with them. I'd like to hear in astronomy terms what makes this one different from Orion Nebula and Crab Nebula. ~ trialsanderrors 21:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Ehh, well, it is a different nebula. :) Like Matterhorn and Alpamayo are different mountains. --KFP (talk | contribs) 00:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, the Crab Nebula is actually a supernova remnant (an exploded star), meaning it is a bit bigger than one star and is thus not a star-forming region. This nebula is more akin to the Orion Nebula (ON) in that both are much larger than a single star (which are quite huge to begin with) and are active star-forming regions. The chief difference between the ON and NGC 602 cum N90 (that is, the open cluster of stars + the surrounding nebula) is that the latter is shaped and oriented such that it is easier to see how star formation is taking place. The open cluster is much easier to pick out than in the images of the ON, and these stars have blown back the surrounding dust causing elephant trunks to form and coalesce into new stars. These elephant trunks are similar to those in the most famous Hubble images: the "pillars of creation" in the Eagle Nebula. There has been considerable excitement accompanying published research related to this cluster and nebula in the past few months. On a less technical level, it looks like a big monster or Pacman chomping on some dots. :-) --Flex (talk|contribs) 15:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Wow, I never noticed that. It's going to devour us all! ♠ SG →Talk 02:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I have uploaded a higher resolution version compressed from the TIFF file at [1]. There is some noise but I think that it is acceptable as the subject is about 1,890,000,000,000,000,000 kilometres away. --KFP (talk | contribs) 02:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support — I thought it was 1,854,263,570,000,000,000 kilometers away! ♠ SG →Talk 06:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Awesome in full size. You don't see many galaxies through the Orion nebula! Support is weak due to the graininess of the image. --Janke | Talk 16:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I guess people here aren't aware of the baby's face in this image? It's looking downwards and to the right, nostrils, chin, closed eyes and forehead are all visible. Stevage 02:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Uhh, OK. I'm sure that adds to the enc value -Fcb981 05:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Meno25 13:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pacman version ;) Seriously though, rather encyclopedic picture that looks great.--Lewk_of_S e rthic _contrib ^talk 13:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]