Kate Wong Scientific American
Like human
newborns who keep their parents up all night, stellar infants
can bend the parental gas cloud to their will. According to new
observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of a star-forming
region in a nearby galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud,
intense radiation and powerful winds from massive, ultrabright
baby stars have sculpted their environment, carving a large cavity
in their natal nebula, N83B.
In the image
at right, these massive stars are seen just as they emerge from
the gaseous womb. (The opportunity for such observations is rare
because the weighty newborns mature quickly and spend much of
their youth hidden by dust.) Of particular interest is a star
at the center of the nebula, just below the brightest region,
whose intense light and furious winds appear to have driven out
the local gas, forming a spherical void perhaps only 30,000 years
ago—quite recent, by astronomical standards. Neighboring
stars in the nebula—including one 45 times more massive than
the sun—are younger. The central star’s fierce wind
may have triggered their formation.
So far, about
20 bright young stars have been detected in N83B. But others may
well exist both there and elsewhere in the Large Magellanic Cloud,
kicking and screaming behind a veil of cosmic dust.
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