That is a telltale sign that the gases had been heated to half a million degrees Fahrenheit or hotter by the blast waves of supernovae. The findings were presented today at the American Astronomical meeting in Atlanta. Md. FUSE is designed to analyze ultraviolet light of wavelengths shorter than can be seen with the Hubble Space Telescope or with the human eye. FUSE is about 10,000 times more sensitive than a satellite called Copernicus that operated in the 1970s. Starting this year, FUSE is expected to start studying deuterium, a fossil atom left from the astronomical Big Bang that astronomers believe gave birth to the universe billions of years ago.
Molecular hydrogen is the primary ingredient in the creation of stars.
This image from a computer animation shows billions of stars, with the white flash representing a supernova. We did see it nearly everywhere. In another set of FUSE observations, researchers found that the stellar wind thrown out by seemingly identical supermassive stars differed depending on the age of the parent galaxy. Researchers led by John Hutchings of the National Research Council of Canada examined two short-lived stars, one in the Large Magellanic Cloud and one in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Magellanic Clouds are two small nearby galaxies.