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Major Government Space Agency Sites
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Missions, Telescopes, and Star Surveys
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Selected Space-Based Missions: Past, Present, and Future
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Optical and Near-Infrared
Possibly the most famous telescope since Galileo's early models, the Hubble Space Telescope has dramatically increased human insight into astronomical processes at a variety of length and time scales, including those important to star formation studies. Below are a few links to HST resources.
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- Flagship site of the remarkably rich collection of Web offerings built around the HST. Includes a gateway page of astronomy resources, links to catalogs and surveys (incluidng the Institute's own MAST service), and a wide variety of public-outreach offerings.
- HubbleSite
- Superb public-outreach site, including a wealth of images, educational resources, and much more.
- Hubble Heritage Project
- Rich archive of images from the Hubble "cosmic zoo," with the aim of buiding bridges between scientists and the public by "emphasizing compelling HST images distilled from scientific data."
- Next Generation Space Telescope
- Official Web site of the successor project to HST, planned for launch in 2009, which will focus on the near-infrared band and will have as a key scientific objective "discovering and understanding the formation of stars and galaxies." A NASA page on the project emphasizes the NGST's place in the agency's Origins program; there's also a nice public-outreach site on NGST.
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Infrared and Submillimeter
Observations in the infrared band have proved particularly important in studies of star formation, as they allow investigators to peer behind the veil of dust that renders the interiors of stellar nurseries, such as nebulae, largely off limits to optical instruments. Here is a sampling of some important past infrared missions, and some slated for launch in the next several years.
- Infrared Space Observatory
- Operational from November 1995 to May 1998, ISO made the most of its two and one-half years, collecting a wealth of data on the infrared spacescape (accessible here through a Java-driven interface) at an unprecedented resolution. Site offers a nice collection of background articles on ISO and infrared astronomy in general.
- Space Infrared Telescope Facility
- Slated for launch in the middle of 2002, SIRTF will cover the thermal infrared band, and will constitute the the fourth of NASA's "Great Observatories" (the other three being Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory). Mission site includes both a variety of public-outreach offerings and the SIRTF Science Center, targeted toward researchers.
- ASTRO-F
- Japanese infrared observer due for launch in 2003 will have high sensitivity at wavelengths of 100 to 200 mm, a key band for observations of protostars.
- Herschel
- According to the brash claims of its sponsor, the European Space Agency, the Herschel mission -- formerly referred to as the Far Infrared and Submillimetre Telescope (FIRST) -- "will solve the mystery of how stars and galaxies were born." Scheduled to be launched in 2007, Herschel will be larger than any of its predecessors, according to ESA, and will observe at wavelengths not covered by previous probes. Additional information on the mission can be found at the Herschel Science Centre site.
- Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite
- A small radio observatory put into space by NASA in late 1998, SWAS has its instruments trained specifically on the spectral lines relevant to water, oxygen, carbon, and carbon monoxide -- with the overall goal of investigating the chemical composition of the interstellar molecular clouds that collapse to form stars.
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X-Ray and Gamma Ray
While generally thought of as bearing on such bizarre phenomena in high-energy astrophysics as black holes, relativistic jets, and neutron stars, investigations at the high-energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum have shed considerable light on star formation in settings such as "starburst galaxies.".
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Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center
- A spectacular site, befitting a spectacularly successful mission. Includes a "field guide" to x-ray astronomy, a superb set of educational resources, a photo album of dazzling x-ray images, sorted by object category, and much more. Well worth a visit.
- Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
- Sophisticated gamma ray observing platform -- one of NASA's four "Great Observatories" -- whose nine-year mission ended in June 2000.
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Some Important Ground-Based Optical and Radio Telescopes
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- European Southern Observatory
- A consortium created in 1962 and consisting of nine European countries, ESO sponsors a number of ground-based facilities, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT), a facility consisting of four 8.2 m reflecting units at the Paranal Observatory in Atacama, Chile, that can be combined as an interferometer. In the conceptual stage at ESO are plans for an even more ambitious, 100 m "overwhelmingly large telescope" (OWL).
- Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)
- Collaborative effort of European, U.S., and Japanese agencies to combine a number of planned radio-telescope projects into one enormous array covering the millimeter/submillimeter portion of the spectrum. When fully operational in 2010, the ALMA facility -- expected to include at least 64 12 meter antennas capable, together, of a spatial resolution of 10 milliarcseconds -- could allow unprecedented detail on individual protostars and other objects in star-forming regions.
- James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
- Facility near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, that is billed as "the largest astronomical telescope in the world designed specifically to operate in the submillimeter wavelength region of the spectrum." Site includes detailed information on the facility's Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) instrument.
- Selected other radio telescopes and arrays:
- Sub-Millimeter Array (SMA) at Mauna Kea
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory
Owens Valley Radio Observatory Millimeter Array
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)
NRAO Very Large Array
Square Kilometer Array project
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Completed and Ongoing Star Surveys
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Databases and "Virtual Observatories"
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Selected Astronomical Databases
- Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center
- Key European source of astrophysical databases, including a trio of well-known, well-designed interfaces whose names have an Arabian Nights flavor: Simbad, the "world reference database for the identification of astronomical objects"; VizieR, which provides access to a wealth of catalog data; and Aladin, a Java-driven interactive sky atlas. Highly recommended.
- NASA Astronomical Data Center (ADC)
- Access to thousands of published astronomical catalogs and journal tables, through browseable lists and a search engine.
- Multimission Archive at Space Telescope (MAST)
- Nicely designed gateway at Space Telescope Science Institute that allows searches of a variety of mission archives, catalogs, and surveys, filtered by relevant wavelength band.
- NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
- Positions, names, and basic data for more than four million objects outside the Milky Way Galaxy.
Virtual Observatory Projects
- The World-Wide Telescope
- Interesting and engaging review article, from Science's 14 September 2001 Computers and Science special issue, discussing the overarching vision of online "virtual observatories" and the status of some of the projects.
- Specific Virtual Observatory Projects
- Among the more advanced projects aimed at building an astronomical data grid are:
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Understanding and Modeling Star Formation
- Stellar Nurseries
- Part of a larger "Whispers from the Cosmos" presentation from the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) radio astronomy consortium and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, this page pulls together images, video clips, and text about starbirth into a highly satisfying presentation for general audiences.
- A Star Is Born
- A "virtual tour through the life of a young star," featuring some excellent images from HST and other sources and informative text for general audiences.
- Where'd All These Stars Come From?
- Lively set of online lecture notes on star formation, at the introductory undergraduate level.
- Formation and Evolution of Stars
- Excellent hypertext resource from a 1998 University of Calgary workshop on the Square Kilometer Array project.
- Triggered Star Formation
- Well-conceived FAQ on star formation "induced by outside agents, such as explosive stellar events, protostellar outflows, ionization fronts and molecular cloud collisions." Includes a section on numerical simulations of triggered star formation.
- Hubble Snaps "Family Portrait"
- Direct example, via the Hubble Space Telescope, of shock-induced formation of six "baby" stars triggered by high-speed particles from a young, massive parent star, NGC 2264 IRS.
- Cardiff Star Formation Research
- Discussion, from the Cardiff University Department of Physics and Astronomy, of some of the principal aims, objectives, and methods of star formation research, with a page detailing some of the Cardiff group's specific results and simulations.
- Ka Chun Yu's Star Formation Page
- Interesting collection of overview graphics and images of young stellar objects, supplemented with links to other resources.
- Star Formation Newsletter
- Monthly publication (available only in LaTeX or PostScript format) including article and dissertation abstracts, book notices, and selected job listings in the star formation field.
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Objects Related to Star Formation
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Molecular Clouds and Protostars
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Nebulae
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- The Web Nebulae
- Impressive collection of striking images and accompanying facts on a wide range of nebulae, including well-known star formers like the Orion and Eagle nebulae.
- Nebulae and Star Formation
- Very nice, simply designed site with a wealth of images and information on nebulae as star factories.
- Star Birth in the Trifid Nebula
- Hubble image of a star-forming region torn through by a stellar jet three-quarters of a light year in length. Page links to a nifty "flyby" animation of the image.
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Herbig-Haro Objects
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Brown Dwarfs
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Globular Clusters and Other Star Clusters
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Starburst Galaxies
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Galactic Mergers
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Miscellaneous Resources
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Organizations and Associations
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Glossaries
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Preprints and Reprints
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Space News Portals
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Web Directories
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ven as, over the past decade, astronomers and astrophysicists have peered ever deeper into the processes of star formation, the World Wide Web has evolved into a medium of extraordinary power for disseminating astronomical information to specialists -- and for making the vast realm of the stars accessible to the general public. The Web has even itself been compared to an enormous 
