Intensive formation of stars in Westerhout 43

Intensive formation of stars in Westerhout 43

Unfortunately, the Westerhout 43 region is not available under direct observation. But in the infrared image taken by the Herschel Space Observatory, it can be seen in all its glory. This is a large-scale cloud, where a whole cluster of massive stars lives in a dust and gas envelope. Removed 20,000 light-years and takes place in the constellation of Eagle.

The cloud has a 20 star maternity hospital, and therefore exceeds the solar mass of 7 million times. The nodes of the birth of new objects are highlighted in blue.

The gas in the center of the picture is a cluster of red-hot large stars like Wolf-Rayet and OM, which are as bright as our star by a million times. The bubble accumulates seeds - future stars. On the right you can see a large complex of blue bubbles. This is reminiscent of a certain link between the stages of the formation of new objects. Westerhout 43 is a wonderful natural laboratory. On her example, you can track the processes of star birth, the cause of which was the collision of two large streams of interstellar matter.

The observatory began operating in 2009. Its goal is to study the areas of star formation on the territory of the Milky Way. It is sensitive to heat and a small amount of cold dust, which helps to find the dense gas cocoons in which future stars hide.

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