Nearby Stellar Nursery Birthing Massive Stars Sat. A new Hubble Space Telescope image provides a glimpse into a previously unseen region of starbirth nestled inside a nearby galaxy. Intense radiation from the ultra-bright newborn stars has blown out a glowing, spherical bubble in a nebula. Researchers say the image is helping them understand the interplay of gas and radiation in a star-forming region, where massive stars sculpt their environment by generating powerful cosmic winds. Although most of the stars in the universe were born several billions of years ago, star formation continues today.
Researchers say the stars are young, massive and ultra-bright.
They are seen in the new image just as they are born and emerge from the shelter of their prenatal molecular cloud. Their high mass means that the young stars evolve rapidly. Because of this, it is difficult for astronomers to catch such events. Furthermore, the stars spend a good fraction of their youth hidden from view, shrouded by large quantities of dust in the cloud from which they form. The only chance is to observe them just as they start to emerge from their cocoon.