Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope
has captured a spectacular image of NGC 3603,
a giant nebula hosting one of the most prominent
massive young clusters in the Milky Way.
This is a splendid location for continuing our detailed study
of stellar birth in star forming regions.
This is the Hubblecast.
News and images from the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Travelling through time and space with our host, Dr. J
EPISODE 9: Extreme star cluster bursts into life! a.k.a. Dr. Joe Liske.
Welcome to the Hubblecast.
Today we are going to travel
to the heart of a massive cluster of young stars
that lies deep inside a vast nebula of gas and dust.
The nebula is called NGC 3603
and it is located about 20,000 light years from Earth
in the Carina spiral arm of our own Milky Way galaxy.
Now turns out that the nebula
is actually the nursery of a star cluster.
It is thought that the nebula contains
hundreds of thousands of solar masses worth of gas,
and only about one million years ago
some of that gas collapsed in on itself
and formed probably all of the stars in the cluster
at more or less the same time
in a massive burst of star formation.
Today we see the result as a glittering collection of stars
surrounded by a dense cloud of hydrogen gas.
In this new detailed image from Hubble
we can see thousands of young blue stars
sparkling against their maternal nebula.
But this is not as tranquil a place as you might think.
Some of the action is still going on.
The strong ultraviolet radiation
and the winds from these newborn stars
are shaping and sculpting the surrounding gas,
carving out a huge cavity into the nebula.
A team of astronomers
was able to use the Hubble Space Telescope
to peer into the hearth of the star forming region
which was first observed in 1834 by Sir John Herschel,
the son of the world-renowned astronomer Sir William Herschel.
They were able to make detailed observations of stars
whose masses differ but whose ages are similar.
Because of this fact astronomers were able to study a wide range
of stars at different points in their respective life cycles
and make comparisons with other similar star clusters.
The new Hubble image is full of interesting objects
for astronomers to study.
Here, at the top right of the image
we see a handful of Bok globules.
These objects were first observed in the 1940s
by astronomer Bart Bok.
They are some of the coldest objects in the Universe
and they are dense clouds of gas and dust
of around ten to fifty solar masses
and they are collapsing to form new stars.
Around the cluster, near the densest part of the nebula
we see these huge pillars of gas
pointing away from the cluster's core.
These were shaped by the massive young cluster's stars
and eventually they will be dispersed into interstellar space.
One of the most interesting objects in the image
is this seemingly innocuous bright star.
This star is designated Sher 25
and it is actually a blue super giant
nearing the very end of its life.
Astronomers think that in the not too distant future
Sher 25 will explode as a tremendous event
like supernova 1987A which has been observed
by Hubble on many occasions.
In doing so it will seed space with the heavy elements
necessary for planet formation.
Perhaps it will even trigger a new wave of star formation
in the nearby nebula.
For now though astronomers using the Hubble
are interested in the stars within the massive young cluster
at the heart of NGC 3603.
Several stars at the cluster's core
have caused astronomers to be deceived.
The huge stars in the innermost regions of the cluster
appear to be far more massive
than our current theoretical limits dictate.
Nothing escapes the sharp eye of Hubble though
as it was able to show that these stars are in fact
the light from several stars blended together.
They appear as one star but are actually composed of
two or even three components.
This agrees well with previous observations
of this apparently "heavy-weight" objects as composed of
several stars of around 80 to 120 solar masses each.
The new Hubble image is full of amazing detail.
Not only are we seeing a whole cluster of stars
just one million years after its birth.
But there's also one star that is about to go supernova
in a gigantic explosion that will be seen
across large parts of the Galaxy.
In NGC 3603 we are literally seeing the birth
and death of stars right before our eyes.
So, this apparently picturesque stellar nursery
is in fact the site of some pretty extreme astronomy!
This is Dr. J signing off for the Hubblecast.
Once again, nature has surprised us beyond our wildest imagination...
Hubblecast is produced by ESA / Hubble
at the European Southern Observatory in Germany.
The Hubble mission is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency.