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An explosion of galactic fireworks allows astronomers to unlock the secrets of the birth of stars.
A team of international scientists spanning four continents have assembled a huge collection of data examining galaxies in multiple wavelengths, each wavelength revealing different parts of each star city.
“Their combination allows us to probe the different stages of star birth – from the formation of stellar nurseries to the start of star formation itself and to the final destruction of nurseries by newly born stars – in more detail than what is possible with individual observations, ”said team member Franceso Belfiore, researcher at INAF-Arcetri in Florence, Italy, in a declaration. “[This] This is the first time we have been able to put together such a complete view, taking images sharp enough to see the individual clouds, stars and nebulae that signify star formation. “
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Stars are born when clouds of gas collapse, but the trigger for their formation remains an exceptional mystery, a mystery that the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) investigation hopes to begin to solve.
The PHANGS team used the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very large telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study more than 30,000 hot gas nebulae mapped around 100,000 regions of cold gas in 90 nearby galaxies to produce an unprecedentedly precise atlas of stellar nurseries in the near universe. The team also drew on the observations of The Hubble Space Telescope, which is managed by NASA and the European Space Agency.
“For the first time, we are solving individual units of star formations over a wide range of locations and environments in a sample that represents the different types of galaxies well,” said ESO astronomer Eric Emsellem. in the statement. “We can directly observe the gas that gives birth to stars, we see the young stars themselves, and we see their evolution through different phases.”
Explosive star birth
To the untrained eye, the collection of galaxies looks like brilliant fireworks exploding in the night sky. Astronomers want to use these explosions to better understand the details of star birth.
“There are a lot of mysteries that we want to unravel,” Kathryn Kreckel, astronomer at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, said in the statement. “Are stars born more often in specific regions of their host galaxies – and, if so, why? And after the birth of stars, how does their evolution influence the formation of new generations of stars? stars? “
By combining the distinctive powers of the trio of telescopes – Very Large Telescope, ALMA and Hubble – the team were able to scan the galactic neighborhood in visible, near infrared and radio wavelengths, with each observation revealing distinct parts of the observed galaxies.
“By combining observations from some of the most powerful telescopes in the world, we can examine the galactic regions where star formation occurs, versus where it should occur,” said Rebecca McElroy of the University of Sydney in Australia in a separate release.
“This will give us the opportunity to better understand what triggers, stimulates or hinders the birth of new stars,” she said.
As the new atlas makes significant strides towards solving outstanding mysteries, future instruments will only improve the process. coming from NASA James Webb Space Telescope, slated for launch later this year, and ESO Extremely large telescope, which will begin field operations later this decade, will allow an even more detailed probe of the composition of stellar nurseries.
“As incredible as PHANGS is, the resolution we produce is just enough to identify and separate individual stellar clouds, but not enough to see what’s going on inside in detail,” Eva Schinnerer of the Max Institute Planck of astronomy in Germany and principal investigator of the PHANGS project said in the ESO statement.
“The new observation efforts of our team and others are pushing the boundaries in this and other directions,” she said. “We have decades of exciting discoveries ahead of us.”
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