ESA: Hubble catches stars on the move

[bystander]

Hubble catches stars on the move
ESA Hubble News (heic1009) - 02 June 2010

surprising signs of unrest in massive star cluster

By exploiting the exquisite image quality of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and comparing two observations made ten years apart astronomers have, for the first time, managed to measure the tiny motions of several hundred young stars within the central cluster of the star-forming region NGC 3603. The team was surprised to find that the stars are moving in ways that are at odds with the current understanding of how such clusters evolve. The stars in the cluster have not “settled down” as expected.

The core of the massive compact star cluster in NGC 3603
(NASA, ESA and Wolfgang Brandner (MPIA), Boyke Rochau (MPIA) and Andrea Stolte (University of Cologne))


Comparison of Hubble observations of the massive compact star cluster in NGC 3603 in 1997 and 2007
(NASA, ESA and Wolfgang Brandner (MPIA), Boyke Rochau (MPIA) and Andrea Stolte (University of Cologne))


The massive compact star cluster in NGC 3603 and its surroundings
(NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration)

Comparison of Hubble observations of the massive star cluster in NGC 3603 in 1997 and 2007 (video)
(NASA, ESA and Wolfgang Brandner (MPIA), Boyke Rochau (MPIA) and Andrea Stolte (University of Cologne))

Zooming in on the massive compact star cluster in NGC 3603 (video)
(NASA, ESA and Wolfgang Brandner (MPIA), Boyke Rochau (MPIA) and Andrea Stolte (University of Cologne))
(Acknowledgement: Robert Gendler, Martin Pugh, Astromania de Yave)

[Ann]

Hey, that's really really interesting!

I'm fascinated by huge massive stars, and I really like massive young super-clusters. I'm almost envious of the Large Magellanic Cloud because they have that humongous young cluster inside the Tarantula Nebula! No, okay, I'm not really envious of them, because I, too, realize that such super clusters can cause and incredible lot of havoc. But it's nice that we have a scaled down version of R 136 ourselves in NGC 3603. I'm always eager and willing to read any news about NGC 3603. It was certainly very interesting to see the movement of stars in the cluster, but personally I also loved the great resolution of the center of the cluster..

Thanks for posting this!

Ann

[bystander]

ScienceShot: Stars in Cluster Buzzing Past Their Youth


(NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration)

Just like aging hippies, the stars in cluster NGC 3603 won't settle down, astronomers found when they compared images of the cluster taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 2007 with images taken 10 years earlier. NGC 3603, located about 20,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina, formed from a giant cloud of gas and dust about 1 million years ago. The full cluster is teeming, with 10,000 stars packed in an area of about 3 light-years square--less than the distance between the sun and its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri. Despite the crowding, astronomers had expected NGC 3603's constituent stars to have slowed to a relatively leisurely pace within the cluster. Eventually, they thought, the cluster would settle into a spherical and stable globular cluster. Instead, they report in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the stars are moving around over twice as fast as expected. Their analyses suggest that astronomers still have some refining to do in their models of how such clusters evolve.

[owlice]

Just like aging hippies, the stars in cluster NGC 3603 won't settle down

Now wait just a minute.... aging hippies most certainly DO! They don't always stay settled down (but that's not always their choice), but they do settle down!

[bystander]

Just like aging hippies, the stars in cluster NGC 3603 won't settle down

Now wait just a minute.... aging hippies most certainly DO! They don't always stay settled down (but that's not always their choice), but they do settle down!

... and you know because ...

[owlice]

... and you know because ...

... ummmm... because I ... ahhh... just do!

[bystander]

Restless stars: High precision study reveals surprising unrest in massive star clusters
Max Plank Gesellschaft - 07 June 2010

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and the University of Cologne have completed a high precision study of one of the most massive young star clusters in the Milky Way. To this end, the scientific researchers compared two observations that were made ten years apart. Their unexpected findings: the members of the cluster are in no stable state of balance and have not yet "settled down".

• 
  NASA/ESA/Wolfgang Brandner (MPIA), Boyke Rochau (MPIA) und Andrea Stolte (Universität zu Köln)
  Partial view of the giant nebula NGC 3603 with its central, 1 million year old compact starburst cluster.
  False-colour image based on observations with the Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2. The dominant green
  colour signalizes light emitted as ionized hydrogen regains its missing electron. The image shape is due
  to the detector placement camera.

Internal Dynamics and Membership of NGC 3603 Young Cluster from Microarcsecond Astrometry

• The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol 716, No 1, L90, 10 June 2010, DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/716/1/L90