. 24/7 Space News .
New Stars Shed Light On The Past

This image depicts bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the centre of a fascinating star-forming region known as N90. The high energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars in N90 is eroding the outer portions of the nebula from the inside, as the diffuse outer reaches of the nebula prevent the energetic outflows from streaming away from the cluster directly. Because N90 is located far from the central body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, numerous background galaxies in this picture can be seen, delivering a grand backdrop for the stellar newcomers. The dust in the region gives these distant galaxies a reddish-brown tint. Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
by Staff Writers
Baltimore MD (SPX) Jan 09, 2007
A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows N90, one of the star-forming regions in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The rich populations of infant stars found here enable astronomers to examine star forming processes in an environment that is very different from that in our own Milky Way.

This new image taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope depicts bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the centre of a fascinating star-forming region known as N90.

N90 is located in the wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud, in the constellation of Tucana, approximately 200,000 light-years away from the Earth. Its proximity makes it an exceptional laboratory to perform in-depth studies of star formation processes and their evolution in an environment close to that in the early Universe. Dwarf galaxies such as the Small Magellanic Cloud, with small numbers of stars compared to our own Milky Way, are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies. The study of star formation within this dwarf galaxy is particularly interesting to astronomers because its primitive nature means that it lacks a large percentage of the heavier elements that are forged in successive generations of stars through nuclear fusion.

The high energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars in N90 is eroding the outer portions of the nebula from the inside, as the diffuse outer reaches of the nebula prevent the energetic outflows from streaming away from the cluster directly. Because N90 is located far from the central body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, numerous background galaxies in this picture can be seen, delivering a grand backdrop for the stellar newcomers. The dust in the region gives these distant galaxies a reddish-brown tint.

Hubble has often been used to observe star birth regions, but they are rarely as stunning and fascinating as N90. At the heart of N90 lies NGC 602, a relatively isolated star cluster whose environment is a close analogue to what existed in the early Universe. The existence of dark clouds of dense dust and the cluster being rich in ionized gas suggest the presence of ongoing star formation processes.

Ridges of dust and gaseous filaments are seen towards north-west (in the upper left part of the image) and towards south-east (in the lower right hand corner). Magnificent elephant trunk-like dust pillars point towards the hot blue stars and are tell-tale signs of their eroding effect.

An international team of astronomers, led by Antonella Nota of the European Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute in the US, has discovered a population of small newborn stars scattered across the picture. Observable around the bright blue stars at the centre of the image, these stars have caught astronomers' attention because they are still forming from gravitationally collapsing gas clouds. Furthermore, they have not yet contracted to the point where their cores are hot enough to begin converting hydrogen into helium.

In this region it is possible with Hubble to trace how the star formation started at the centre of the cluster and propagated outwards, with the youngest stars still forming today along the dust ridges.

This image was presented by Lynn Redding Carlson, Johns Hopkins University, at the 2007 January meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

Related Links
NASA's photo release
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


DOE Office Of Science Awards 95 Million Hours Of Supercomputing Time To Advance Research
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 09, 2007
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science announced today that 45 projects were awarded a total of 95 million hours of computing time on some of the world's most powerful supercomputers as part of its 2007 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. DOE's Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond Orbach presented the awards at the Council on Competitiveness in Washington, DC.







  • Microsoft Vista Launch Promoted With Space Ride Prize
  • NASA Extends Ares I Development Contract
  • Instant Noodle Inventor Dies At 96
  • South Korea Picks Two To Train To Be First Astronaut

  • New Analysis of Viking Mission Results Indicates Presence of Life on Mars
  • It Is No Mirage
  • CU-Boulder Proposal Selected As Finalist For Mission To Probe Past Climate Of Mars
  • NASA Selects Proposals For Future Mars Missions And Studies

  • Arianespace To Launch ProtoStar I
  • India To Launch Latest Space Rocket
  • Successful Arianespace Service Introduction For The Soyuz 2-1B Launcher
  • Russia Remains Leader In Spacecraft Launches

  • Northrop Grumman To Develop System Requirements For USAF Alternate Infrared Sat System
  • Digitalglobe Announces Ball Aerospace Is Building Worldview 2 Satellite
  • Raytheon Delivers VIIRS Sensor Engineering Development Unit
  • ITT Provides Air Force Better Way To Get Imagery To Distant Forces

  • New Horizons in 2007
  • Pluto Sighted For First Time By New Horizons From Four Billion Kilometers Away
  • Making Old Horizons New
  • Scientist Who Found Tenth Planet Discusses The Downgrading Of Pluto

  • First 3D Map Of The Universe's Dark Matter Scaffolding
  • X-ray Evidence Supports Possible New Class Of Supernova
  • Portrait Of A Dramatic Stellar Crib
  • The Dark Side Of Nature Makes For Almost A Perfect Crime

  • Britain Considers Plans For Solo Moon Missions
  • Metric Moon
  • Moon shots: China, Japan in '07; U.S., India in '08
  • Lunar Geminids

  • BAE Systems Demonstrates Passive Geo-location Technology
  • Mobile Navigation More Accessible Than Ever
  • Boeing Passes GPS III Milestone and Receives Follow-on Funding
  • Russian Defense Ministry Lifts GLONASS Restrictions

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement