Throughout our Galaxy, new generations of stars are continually being born and old generations are dying.
Violent processes accompany both the birth and death of stars.
During the formation phase, in which a cold cloud of molecular gas collapses due to gravity, fast jets of gas can often be seen being ejected from the forming star at the centre of the cloud. Over the next million years or so, this activity will die down and the young star producing these jets will come to resemble our own Sun, and may even have planets of its own. It is a radio telescope with a very precise surface, allowing it to operate at wavelengths of about 1 mm. The material is ejected at up to 10,000 kilometres per second and produces strong radio waves as it expands into the space around the star. The image on the right is a Ryle telescope radio map of just such a supernova which exploded 300 years ago.