ALMA and Hubble captured star cluster G286.21 + 0.17 in the act of formation.
ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO), Y. Cheng et al.; NRAO / AUI / NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA / ESA Hubble
The G286.21 + 0.17 star cluster, an active stellar birthplace, may not have a charming name, but it certainly is beautiful in the eyes of telescopes.
The Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile partnered with the Hubble Space Telescope to create a star cluster mosaic that makes it look like a cosmic fireworks display filled with purple streamers and sizzling stars.
The view of G286.21 + 0.17 gives us an idea of what the birthplace of our own sun might have been like. “These clusters are the building blocks of galaxies, but their formation from dense molecular clouds remains largely a mystery,” the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) said in a statement Thursday.
“This illustrates how dynamic and chaotic the process of star birth is,” said theoretical astrophysicist Jonathan Tan of Chalmers University in Sweden and the University of Virginia. “We see competing forces at work: gravity and cloud turbulence on one side, and stellar winds and radiation pressure from young stars on the other.” Tan is a co-author of an article about the group published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal.
The colorful image is a composite of 750 ALMA radio observations and nine Hubble infrared images. ALMA’s eyes are responsible for purple, which highlights the molecular clouds in the cluster, and Hubble provides the view of the bright stars and dust that shines in shades of red and yellow.
Humans on Earth are quite talented when it comes to making fireworks, but it’s hard to beat the kaleidoscopic wonders of the cosmos.
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