{"id":25905,"date":"2023-05-11T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25905"},"modified":"2023-05-10T18:52:01","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T22:52:01","slug":"25905","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25905","title":{"rendered":"ESO: Hidden views of vast stellar nurseries"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report from the European Space Observatory (ESO<\/a>):<\/p>\n

ESO telescope reveals hidden views <\/strong>
\nof vast stellar nurseries<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This image shows the L1688 region in the Ophiuchus constellation. New stars are born in the colourful clouds of gas and dust seen here. The infrared observations underlying this image reveal new details in the star-forming regions that are usually obscured by the clouds of dust. The image was produced with data collected by the VIRCAM instrument, which is attached to the VISTA telescope at ESO\u2019s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The observations were done as part of the VISIONS survey, which will allow astronomers to better understand how stars form in these dust-enshrouded regions. This 520-million-pixel image can be explored in more detail with this zoomable version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using ESO\u2019s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), astronomers have created a vast infrared atlas of five nearby stellar nurseries by piecing together more than one million images. These large mosaics reveal young stars in the making, embedded in thick clouds of dust. Thanks to these observations, astronomers have a unique tool with which to decipher the complex puzzle of stellar birth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these images we can detect even the faintest sources of light, like stars far less massive than the Sun, revealing objects that no one has ever seen before,<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

says Stefan Meingast, an astronomer at the University of Vienna in Austria and lead author of the new study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will allow us to understand the processes that transform gas and dust into stars.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Stars form when clouds of gas and dust collapse under their own gravity, but the details of how this happens are not fully understood. How many stars are born out of a cloud? How massive are they? How many stars will also have planets?<\/p>\n