Stellar nurseries are large cauldrons of dust and gas that forge stars. Astronomers recently discovered via a first-of-its-kind survey that the star nurseries are far more diverse than what scientists initially thought.
Astronomy physicists from the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies program, also known as PHANGS, have located 100,000 and more nurseries in 90 various galaxies. Each of the individual star nurseries has unique features.
What are Stellar Nurseries?
Stellar nurseries are made up of star clusters that take millions of years to build. The stars eventually grow into turbulent gasses and dust, making themselves glowing and reaching the form of protostars, before achieving their last stage as gigantic orbs of collective plasma comparable to the Milky Way's sun.
The stellar nurseries that are charted across different galaxies have more or less the same characteristics, said Ohio State University's associate professor of astronomy and principal author of the study Adam Leroy. But contrary to our knowledge, the group of stars is definitely unique to each of their neighboring clusters. What's more, is that the star nurseries change the place from time to time, he added.
Leroy also mentioned that these groups of tiny stars are the ones responsible for building galaxies and making other celestial bodies such as planets. The stellar nurseries are just as important as other factors that contributed to the story of our origin, reports EurekAlert.
Origin of Planets and Universe in Star Nurseries
The star nurseries have been observed within a span of five years. The investigation expanded beyond our galaxy, also known as the nearby universe, which are cosmic spaces that is a bit distant from the Milky Way. Astronomers used a radio telescope called Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array or ALMA to survey the proximities of potential stellar nurseries resting in place.
The radio telescope, which is located at the Atacama Desert in Chile, used electromagnetic spectrum instead of the base optical device for experts to identify the faint glows of the gasses and dust easily through the dark, molecular clouds. This method is much better than tracking the visible light from the stars themselves and allowed astronomers to construct images of the star formations, reports Live Science.
PHANGS lead investigator and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy expert Eva Schinnerer said that the birth of a single star holds the clue to understanding how the cluster of stars form. The effective method used is comparable to how humans track individuals. Investigating a star nursery is pretty much like investigating a person's home, neighborhood, city, and region.
The stars, on the other hand, trace their origins back to the affecting bodies around them, including molecular clouds. The location of the molecular clouds is important because it will tell how the stars are forged differently. The study of the stellar nurseries is published in the journal arXiv entitled "PHANGS-ALMA: Arcsecond CO(2-1) Imaging of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies."
Leroy emphasized that the first-ever clearest view of the stellar nurseries' population is a big step to uncover where all of the universes, including us, came from. Expected studies will include how the changes in the 100,000-star nurseries affect the formation of planets and other celestial bodies.
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