Star birth is a messy and chaotic event. Some of the process remains well hidden behind clouds of gas and dust that make up star-forming regions. However, part of it happens in wavelengths of light we can detect, such as visible light and infrared. It’s an intricate process that the Webb telescope (JWST) can study in detail.
Continue reading “Webb Sees a Star-Forming Region Blowing Vast Bubbles”This Galaxy Was Already Dead When the Universe Was Only 700 Million Years Old
When a galaxy runs out of gas and dust, the process of star birth stops. That takes billions of years. But, there’s a galaxy out there that was already dead when the Universe was only 700 million years old. What happened to it?
Continue reading “This Galaxy Was Already Dead When the Universe Was Only 700 Million Years Old”Even Stars Like the Sun Can Unleash Savage Flares in Their Youth
Why would a young Sun-like star suddenly belch out a hugely bright flare? That’s what astronomers at Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory want to know after they spotted such an outburst using a sensitive submillimeter-wave telescope. According to Joshua Bennett Lovell, leader of a team that observed the star’s activity, these kinds of flare events are rare in such young stars, particularly at millimeter wavelengths. So, what’s happening there?
Continue reading “Even Stars Like the Sun Can Unleash Savage Flares in Their Youth”The JWST Discovers a Galaxy That Shouldn’t Exist
Astronomers working with the JWST found a dwarf galaxy they weren’t looking for. It’s about 98 million years away, has no neighbours, and was in the background of an image of other galaxies. This isolated galaxy shows a lack of star-formation activity, which is very unusual for an isolated dwarf.
Most isolated dwarf galaxies form stars, according to a wealth of observations. What’s different about this one?
Continue reading “The JWST Discovers a Galaxy That Shouldn’t Exist”Astronomers See Massive Stars Forming Together in Multiple Star Systems
All stars form in giant molecular clouds of hydrogen. But some stars are extraordinarily massive; the most massive one we know of is about 200 times more massive than the Sun. How do these stars gain so much mass?
Part of the answer is that they form in multiple star systems.
Continue reading “Astronomers See Massive Stars Forming Together in Multiple Star Systems”The Oldest Known Spiral Galaxy Has Ripples Like the Surface of a Pond
Astronomers have detected pond-like ripples across the gaseous disk of an ancient galaxy. What caused the ripples, and what do they tell us about the distant galaxy’s formation and evolution? And whatever happened, how has it affected the galaxy and its main job: forming stars?
Continue reading “The Oldest Known Spiral Galaxy Has Ripples Like the Surface of a Pond”JWST Sets a New Record, Sees Newly Forming Stars in the Triangulum Galaxy
Our Milky Way bristles with giant molecular clouds birthing stars. Based on what we see here, astronomers assume that the process of star creation also goes on similarly in other galaxies. It makes sense since their stars have to form somehow. Now, thanks to JWST, astronomers have spotted baby stellar objects in a galaxy 2.7 million light-years away. That’s millions of light-years more distant than any previous observations of newly forming stars have reached.
Continue reading “JWST Sets a New Record, Sees Newly Forming Stars in the Triangulum Galaxy”Three Baby Stars Found at the Heart of the Milky Way
The core of our Milky Way is buzzing with stars. Recently astronomers reported that it contains at least one ancient star that formed outside our galaxy. Now, an international research team reports finding a grouping of very young ones there, as well. Their presence upends ideas about star birth in that densely packed region of space.
Continue reading “Three Baby Stars Found at the Heart of the Milky Way”This Dark Nebula Hides an Enormous Star
The birth of a star is a spectacular event that plays out behind a veil of gas and dust. It’s a detailed process that takes millions of years to play out. Once a star leaves its protostar stage behind and begins its life of fusion, the star’s powerful radiative output blows the veil away.
But before then, astrophysicists are at a disadvantage.
Continue reading “This Dark Nebula Hides an Enormous Star”Protostars Can Siphon Material from Far Away
When stars are born, they do it inside a molecular cloud. Astronomers long assumed that the “crèche” supplied all the nutrients that protostars needed to form. However, it turns out they get help from outside the nest.
Continue reading “Protostars Can Siphon Material from Far Away”