The Very Large Telescope captures spectacular spirals of light created by young stars millions of light-years away from us.
New stars are born within clouds of gas, but what triggers this process remains unclear. In an effort to find answers, a research team from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Heidelberg University in Germany scanned 16 nearby galaxies, located between 5 to 60 million light-years from Earth, to investigate the birth of stars.
Young stars and surrounding hot gas glow like “firework pinwheels” in galaxies NGC 3627, NGC 1087, NGC 4254, NGC 1300, and NGC 4303. (Image: ESO/ALMA).
The stunning images released on July 16 show the different components of the galaxies with distinct colors, allowing for precise identification of the locations of young stars as the surrounding gas heats up.
“This is the first study to analyze individual star formation units across various locations and environments in different types of galaxies. We can directly observe the star-forming gas clouds, as well as the young stars and their evolution through multiple stages,” emphasized lead author Eric Emsellem from ESO.
Emsellem and his colleagues utilized the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) mounted on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of ESO in the Atacama Desert of Chile to monitor “newborn” stars as they illuminate and heat the surrounding gas.
Combined with imaging data from the array of 66 telescopes at the ALMA Observatory, also located in a desert in Chile, the research team was able to examine the regions of galaxies where star formation is actively occurring. The high-resolution observations from the ALMA Observatory are “particularly suited” for mapping gas clouds.
“The images obtained are amazing, providing a colorful and spectacular view of the star nurseries in nearby galaxies of the Milky Way. There are many mysteries we want to unravel. Are stars typically born in specific regions of their host galaxies? If so, why? And once stars are born, how does their evolution influence the formation of new generations of stars?” shared co-author Kathryn Kreckel from Heidelberg University.
These questions remain unanswered in this study, but Kreckel hopes that the data they collected can be used by future astronomers to learn more about energy sources in our universe. It also lays the groundwork for future observations with the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) of ESO, expected to begin operations later this decade, which will allow for more detailed views of star nurseries.
