A red cloud of space gas is giving astronomers a glimpse at star birth

By Miriam Kramer from Mashable

A telescope in Chile recently captured a beautiful image of a star-forming region of the universe, where a red cloud of gas glows in a distant part of the sky. The image, and others like it, is providing astronomers with a peek into how stars are born and evolve.

The nebula, called RCW 34, plays host to multiple young stars that heat the hydrogen gas around it.

Once that gas is heated, reaching the edge of the gas cloud, it flows outward in a process called “champagne flow,” according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The ESO released the new image on Wednesday.

The photo, taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile, reveals that RCW 34 — a part of the wider star-forming region called Gum 19 — plays host to plenty of young stars that are less massive than the sun.

Older, larger stars are in the middle of the image, with the smaller stars dispersed around them, ESO said.

“This distribution has led astronomers to believe that there have been different episodes of star formation within the cloud,” ESO said in a statement. “Three gigantic stars formed in the first event that then triggered the formation of the less massive stars in their vicinity.”

RCW 34 is actually somewhat difficult to observe for people on Earth. The visible light in this region of space can’t be seen well from the planet because clouds of material block the stars embedded within the nebula. Because of this, scientists use infrared telescopes that can cut through that dust to create photos like this one.

IMAGES:
Nebula-eso The nebula RCW 34 shines. IMAGE: ESO
Wide-sky nebula The region of sky around RCW 34.

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