Since the birth of massive stars (several times larger than our sun), they emit a hot, bright glow until they eventually explode to form supernovas. During this time, the energy they release is so huge that it can even affect the evolution of galaxies. But unlike stars like the Sun, astronomers know little about the mystery of these giant star formations.
"Massive stars like these make up less than one percent of all stars, but they can have an impact on the formation of other stars." Jim De Buizer, a senior scientist at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), the science center of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). "Stars like our Sun are quieter and more low-key at the beginning of their formation, and because of the sheer number of them, we know their origin properties more thoroughly."
To learn more, the researchers used sofia stratospheric infrared observatory SOFIA to study a huge celestial cloud called W51. Located about 17,000 light-years away, W51 is composed mainly of hydrogen, a rare giant star formation. But those stars were born deep inside celestial clouds, not in the light frequency range visible to the human eye; using SOFIA's space-borne telescope and highly sensitive infrared camera, the team carefully observed the high-density celestial cloud, and they captured a starlight show in the universe triggered by star formation, including many phenomena never seen before.
In the cradle of stars known as W51, the birth of a massive star sparked a cosmic starlight show that showed white light in images of the starry sky in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The oldest and most evolved massive stars are located in the upper left corner of the image, in the middle of a pale yellow bubble-like halo; the youngest groups of stars are generally located in the region near the center of the image, near the brightest spherical region on the left in the middle. Massive stars such as these emit enormous amounts of energy, so they played an important role in the evolution of the Milky Way.
Copyright: NASA/SOFIA/Lim and de Buizé et al., as well as Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The infrared camera used by SOFIA is called the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST), with its sensitive detector and powerful magnification capabilities, allowing researchers to spot giant stars the moment they are born. How are massive stars born in distant galaxies? Because they are too far away for scientists to observe them in detail, studying how massive stars form in our Milky Way will help scientists understand the formation of similar massive stars in distant galaxies.
"In terms of photos taken with this wavelength infrared light, this is the highest resolution image available at the moment." Wanggi Lim, a scientist at the SOFIA Science Center's Association for Space Research in Colleges and Universities, said. "This not only reveals the morphology of regions that we could not see before, but is critical for us to understand the physical properties and relative ages of these stars and their parent celestial clouds."
The researchers combined SOFIA data with data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) and herschel Space Observatory (HSO) to analyze these massive stars. They found that while the stars in the celestial cloud were relatively young, some of them were more evolved, and others were the youngest of the most recently formed. One of the stars is extraordinarily large, about 100 times more massive than the Sun, and if later observations can determine that it is a single giant star, rather than multiple similar stars clustered together, it would be one of the most massive stars that have formed in our Galaxy.
Scientists are conducting a survey on how young, massive stars illuminate other regions of our Galaxy, and the findings above are the first results of this survey.
The Sofia Stratospheric Infrared Observatory SOFIA, a modified Boeing 747SP jetliner carrying a 106-inch (269 cm) diameter telescope, is a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, manages the SOFIA program, its science and the operation of its missions, in partnership with the Columbia,M.-based Association for Space Studies in Colleges and Universities, and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart. The maintenance and operation of the SOFIA aircraft is handled by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center Hangar 703 in Palmdale, California.
reference:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/sofia-captures-cosmic-light-show-of-star-formation