NASA image displaying the location
of young star clusters pinpointed from data collected by NASA's WISE spacecraft
The sharp «eye» of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds
of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiant
The sharp «eye» of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds
of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiant (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)-RRB-
Recent surveys
of young star clusters indicate that relatively small objects — less than 13 times Jupiter's size, for instance — are common.
Glowing pink clouds of hydrogen gas harbor countless newborn stars, and the bluish - white hue
of young star clusters litter the landscape.
Not exact matches
Using observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, the research team has for the first time found
young populations
of stars within globular
clusters that have apparently developed courtesy
of star - forming gas flowing in from outside
of the
clusters themselves.
Yet recent discoveries
of young stars in old globular
clusters have scrambled this tidy picture.
Young star clusters and clouds
of hydrogen that formed in our galaxy help trace the shapes
of the Milky Way's arms, so astronomers are reasonably certain that it has a spiral structure (see right).
Chikako Yasui and Naoto Kobayashi at the University
of Tokyo, Japan, and colleagues observed two extremely
young star clusters in Cassiopeia 62,000 light years from the Milky Way's centre — over twice as far out as the sun — in a cloud
of gas and dust named Digel Cloud 2.
The famous Trapezium
Cluster of hot
young stars appears towards the bottom
of this image.
Large groups
of young blue
stars indicate the locations
of star clusters and
star - forming regions.
The wide - field optical camera on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST)-- has captured the spectacular Orion Nebula and its associated
cluster of young stars in great detail.
The wide - field optical camera on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST)-- has captured the spectacular Orion Nebula and its associated
cluster of young stars in great detail, producing this beautiful new image.
But Paul Crowther
of the University
of Sheffield, examining images from the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope, identified four
young stars (pdf) exceeding that mass in R136, a stellar
cluster 165,000 light - years away.
Conventional wisdom says that globular
star clusters are the stodgy old codgers
of the universe, but it turns out that many
of these
clusters are
young
Hidden in its gaping maw may be the Milky Way's most massive
cluster of young stars.
The group
of bright blue - white
stars at the upper - left is the Trapezium
Cluster — made up
of hot
young stars that are only a few million years old.
And deep within the heart
of just about all
of these stellar
clusters are strange populations
of stars called blue stragglers, which appear much
younger than their companions, even though they should all be the same age.
A team led by Ted von Hippel
of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Arizona, and Gerry Gilmore
of the University
of Cambridge has used an accurate new technique to assess the age
of a relatively
young cluster of stars.
Some
stars in globular
clusters may be 15 billion years old, he says, but the great bulge at the center
of the Milky Way — a
younger part
of the galaxy, according to conventional wisdom — actually holds
stars that are 1 or 2 billion years older.
The
cluster contains thousands
of stars less than 2.5 million years old, making it the best place to find the biggest
young stars that have not yet exploded.
The Pleiades, sometimes called the Seven Sisters, is a
cluster of many
young stars.
The researchers mapped thousands
of star clusters in the attractive barred spiral galaxy M83 (shown), 15 million light - years from Earth, finding that the percentage
of young stars in
clusters declines from the urban core to the suburbs: Four thousand light - years from M83's center, 19 %
of young stars belong to
clusters, whereas 13,000 light - years out, just 7 % do.
This snowballing effect would occur in the centres
of young, dense
star clusters, producing a black hole when the accumulated
stars explode and die.
The newfound
young star clusters lie thousands
of light - years below the plane
of our Milky Way galaxy, a flat spiral disk seen in this artist's conception.
It contains a
cluster of hot
young stars.
The Substellar Objects in Nearby
Young Clusters (SONYC) survey included the
star cluster NGC 1333, 1000 light years away in the constellation
of Perseus.
With an age that's only 2 %
of the sun's, the Pleiades
cluster is so
young that its
stars still drift through space together.
A
cluster of young, pulsating
stars discovered at the far side
of the Milky Way may mark the location
of a previously unseen dark - matter dominated dwarf galaxy hidden behind clouds
of dust.
This picture shows the bright central region
of this nebula which contains a very compact and very
young cluster of stars.
During the first close approach just prior to four billion years in the future, the sky is ablaze with new
star formation, which is evident in vast numbers
of emission nebulae and open
young star clusters (Image: NASA / STScI)
STScI / NASA press releases: Hubble Makes the First Precise Distance Measurement to an Ancient Globular
Star Cluster Hubble Unmasks Ghost Galaxies Deepest View
of Space Yields
Young Stars in Andromeda Halo Hubble Identifies Source
of Ultraviolet Light in an Old Galaxy ESA press releases: Hubble Unmasks Ghost Galaxies Four Unusual Views
of the Andromeda Galaxy Public speaking: On the Trail
of the Missing Galaxies High - Level Science Products from Large and Treasury Programs: GO - 9453: The Age
of the Andromeda Halo (126 orbits) GO - 10265: The Formation History
of Andromeda (107 orbits) GO - 10816: The Formation History
of Andromeda's Extended Metal - Poor Halo (128 orbits) GO - 11664 / 12666: The WFC3 Galactic Bulge Treasury Program: Populations, Formation History and Planets (56 orbits) GO - 12549: The Formation History
of the Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies (113 orbits)
The group
of bright blue - white
stars at the left is the Trapezium
Cluster, hot
young stars that are only a few million years old.
The feature can be easily spotted as a bright blue ring, which is shining with the light
of countless
star clusters comprised
of hot,
young stellar bodies.
But if approved, K2 will be looking at a much more diverse region
of sky with a wide range
of astronomical and astrophysical phenomena: planets with short orbits around cooler
stars (which, if in their
star's habitable zone, could still harbor water);
young, still - forming proto -
stars, which could provide insight into
star and planet formation; and supernovae and galaxy
clusters.
Gillian Wilson, professor
of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, added, «Fascinatingly, however, the study found that the percentage
of galaxies which had stopped forming
stars in those
young, distant
clusters, was much lower than the percentage found in much older, nearby
clusters.
«This particular source
of gamma rays was found towards an unusual
cluster of stars which harbours one
of the Milky Way's most massive and energetic
young stars, a luminous blue variable
star called LBV1806 - 20,» says Associate Professor Gavin Rowell, from the University
of Adelaide's High Energy Astrophysics Group and leader
of Australia's participation in HESS.
The collection
of very bright,
young stars above and to the right
of Eta Carinae is the open
star cluster Trumpler 14.
Astrophysics observations with K2 will include studies
of young open
clusters, bright
stars, galaxies, supernovae, and asteroseismology.
NGC 1333 is a
star cluster populated with many
young stars that are less than 2 million years old — a blink
of an eye in astronomical terms for
stars like these expected to burn for billions
of years.
They then compared the two datasets with observations
of the
young stars in the Orion Nebula
Cluster, perhaps the most well - studied young star cluster in the Milky Way
Cluster, perhaps the most well - studied
young star cluster in the Milky Way
cluster in the Milky Way galaxy.
They believe the gas may be driven by supernova explosions and the intense stellar winds from an unseen
cluster of young stars in one
of our Galaxy's spiral arms.
To make a detailed study
of the X-ray properties
of young stars, a team
of astronomers, led by Elaine Winston from the University
of Exeter, United Kingdom, analyzed the Chandra X-ray data
of both NGC 1333, located about 780 light - years from Earth, and the Serpens cloud, a similar
cluster of young stars about 1,100 light - years away.
The
stars which are even older have dissipated into a more diffuse background; this includes intermediate population I
stars, older
star clusters and the
younger representatives
of the planetary nebulae.
The density waves first concern interstellar matter, which is compressed, forms diffuse nebulae which become starforming regions, and later form (open)
clusters and associations
of young stars, the most lumionous and conspicuous
of which are massive, hot, blue and short - lived.
A nearby companion galaxy, NGC 5195, off the edge
of this image, gravitational pull is triggering
star formation in the main galaxy, as seen in brilliant detail by numerous, luminous
clusters of young and energetic
stars.
The
young open
cluster NGC 6530 associated with the Lagoon Nebula M8 was classified as
of Trumpler type «II 2 m n» (see e.g. the Sky Catalog 2000), meaning that it is detached but only weakly concentrated toward its center, its
stars scatter in a moderate range
of brightness, it is moderately rich (50 — 100
stars), and associated with nebulosity (certainly, with the Lagoon nebula).
The
stars in the
cluster in the centre
of the Omega nebula are very
young with an average age
of about 1 million years.
This is another nebula surrouding a
young cluster of stars including the fifth magnitude variable
star S Monocerotis.
Located in the Perseus Arm
of the Galaxy, the Heart and Soul Nebulae are located in a region
of active
star formation containing many
young clusters of stars.