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.
Trumpler 14 is the largest and
youngest star cluster in the Carina Nebula.
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 galaxy.
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).
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.
Possibly it beefed up by colliding and merging with other
young stars in the
cluster.
Hidden
in its gaping maw may be the Milky Way's most massive
cluster of
young stars.
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 100,000 - light - year - long structure identified
in the Hubble data is dotted with 19
young, blue
star clusters like pearls on a string, evenly spaced and separated by 3,000 light - years.
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.
The Substellar Objects
in Nearby
Young Clusters (SONYC) survey included the
star cluster NGC 1333, 1000 light years away
in the constellation of Perseus.
Young blue
stars,
star clusters and tidal dwarf galaxies are born
in these tidal debris.
A few globular -
cluster stars, however, shine
in blue - white light — suggesting something anomalously hot,
young and bright.
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)
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.
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.
The scientists speculate that the gas may be blown outward by the strong stellar winds and supernova explosions from numerous massive
young stars in a
cluster.
We find that the
young stellar population
in AFGL333 lacks massive
stars, compared to other known
clusters in main W3 complex including IC 1795 and W3 - Main.
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.
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have identified 152 X-ray sources, including 95 new
young stellar objects (YSOs)
in Serpens South
star - forming
cluster.
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).
Open
clusters are distributed
in the Galaxy very similarly to
young stars.
The
stars in the
cluster in the centre of the Omega nebula are very
young with an average age of about 1 million years.
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.
The iconic photo of the so - called «Pillars of Creation» reveals never - before - seen details of three giant columns of cold gas bathed
in the scorching ultraviolet light from a
cluster of
young, massive
stars in a small region of the Eagle Nebula.
He analyzed the binary
star known as HD 142527, located
in the Scorpius - Centaurus
cluster of
young stars.
The Orion Trapezium is a
cluster of
young stars still
in the process of forming.
Initially estimated to be 12 to 50 million years old, the object shares the same motion as
stars in the
young Omicron Velorum
cluster (IC 2391), which resides around 450 light - years away
in Constellation Vela, next to Columba.
Trapezium (Theta1Orionis) is a
star cluster at the heart of the Orion Nebula consisting of more than 1,000
young stars crowded into a space about four light - years
in diameter (roughly the distance between the Sun and the next nearest
star).
These nurseries give birth to
clusters of
stars that represent the ideal markers for tracing the position of spiral arms, as the relatively
young groups of
stars have not yet had the time to drift away from the region
in which they were created.
This
young cluster of about 3,000
stars in our Milky Way is called Westerlund 2 and contains some of the galaxy's hottest, brightest, and most massive
stars.
The Trapezium
Cluster is among the very
youngest (open)
clusters known, with new
stars still forming
in this region.
The dusty cloud, the results suggest, will likely evolve into one of the most massive
young clusters of
stars in our galaxy.
Clusters of luminous,
young blue
stars can be seen to have formed
in and around the dark, gas - and dust - rich band that bisects the «Hamburger Galaxy» (more).
The discovery of hot ultraviolet
stars in globular
clusters proved to be a real surprise to astronomers
in the 1970s, who thought that only
young, massive
stars could shine
in the ultraviolet.
Stothers, R.B., 1985: Evolution of massive
stars in very
young clusters and associations.