PARIS — Imagine multi-colored pinwheel fireworks, but on a galactic
scale.
That is exactly what images of baby stars that European astronomers released
Friday look like.
اضافة اعلان
Taken from nearby galaxies by the European Southern Observatory's
Very Large Telescope, images of the swirls of light have allowed astronomers to pinpoint
the locations of young stars with new precision, along with the warming gas
crucial to their formation.
Scientists have long known that stars are born in clouds of gas, but what
exactly triggers what star formation — and how galaxies as a whole fit in to
the picture — remains largely unknown.
"For the first time, we are resolving individual units of star
formation over a wide range of locations and environments in a sample that well
represents different types of galaxies," said Eric Emsellem, an ESO
astronomer.
"We can directly observe the gas that gives birth to stars, we see the
young stars themselves, and we witness their evolution through various
phases."
Emsellem and his team used the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) in
conjunction with the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert to
trace the newborn stars as they illuminate and heat up surrounding gases.
By combining MUSE images with data from an array of 66 radio telescopes,
also in the Chilean desert, astronomers will gain insights into the stellar
nurseries of our neighboring galaxies.
"There are many mysteries we want to unravel," Kathryn Kreckel
from the University of Heidelberg, said in a statement.
"Are stars more often born in specific regions of their host galaxies?
If so, why? And after stars are born, how does their evolution influence the
formation of new generations of stars?"
The news images — from 19 galaxies some five to 60 million light years from
Earth — will help answer these questions, she said.
MUSE collects spectra — like "bar codes" that allow astronomers to
unveil the properties and nature of cosmic objects — at every single location
within its field of view, thus providing much richer information than
traditional instruments.
The ESO is an intergovernmental astronomy organization in
Europe.
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