Tons of of hundreds of stars are contained on this image, an infrared picture of Sagittarius C, a area close to the middle of the Milky Way. Taken with ESO’s Very Massive Telescope (VLT) within the Chilean Atacama Desert, this picture helps astronomers unlock a stellar puzzle.
The middle of the Milky Way is probably the most prolific star-forming area in your complete galaxy. Nevertheless, astronomers have solely discovered a fraction of the younger stars they anticipated right here: there may be “fossil” proof that many extra stars had been born within the current previous than those we really see.
It’s because trying towards the middle of the galaxy isn’t a straightforward process: clouds of dust and gasoline block the sunshine from the celebs and obscure the view. Infrared devices, such because the HAWK-I digital camera on the VLT, permit astronomers to look by way of these clouds and reveal the starry panorama past.
In a recent study showing in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Francisco Nogueras Lara, an astronomer at ESO in Germany, analyzed VLT knowledge of Sagittarius C, a area whose chemical composition made it a promising candidate to host just lately fashioned stars. And it delivered: he discovered that this area was a lot richer in younger stars than different areas within the galactic middle. Seeking to comparable areas, now, is a promising result in discovering the opposite lacking young stars.
Extra info:
F. Nogueras-Lara, Looking younger stars within the Galactic centre, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2024). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202348712
Quotation:
Hiding within the crowd: The seek for lacking younger stars (2024, February 13)
retrieved 13 February 2024
from https://phys.org/information/2024-02-crowd-young-stars.html
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