1 million cosmic baby pictures form a vast star atlas for astronomers

By Robert Lea published 3 days ago

The new atlas is 'revealing objects that no one has ever seen before.'

A fresh atlas of five nearby stellar nurseries shows infant stars shining through the dense clouds of gas and dust from which they were formed.

The atlas brings to light vast star birthplaces in infrared light. Astronomers created it by stitching together over one million cosmic baby pictures using the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Astronomers know that stars form when cool and extremely dense patches in vast dust and gas clouds collapse under their own gravity. But details such as how many stars a dust cloud can birth— and how many of these stars will go on to host planets — are less clear.

The observations from VISTA could help astronomers better understand these aspects of star birth, and the complex process that leads to early stellar evolution.



An image of the nearby star-forming region around the Coronet star cluster, in the constellation Corona Australis taken by the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. (Image credit: ESO)

More:
https://www.space.com/telescope-star-atlas-cosmic-baby-pictures