Gemini Observatory | 2016 Jun 17
[img3=" Gemini South GeMS/GSAOI near-infrared image of the N159W field in the LargeThe world’s most advanced adaptive optics system reveals “shocking” details on star formation in a new image released today by the Gemini Observatory.
Magellanic Cloud. The image spans 1.5 arcminutes across, resolves stars
to about 0.09 arcseconds. Image credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA.
Color composite: Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage."]http://www.gemini.edu/images/pio/News/2 ... 5/fig1.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
An unprecedented view from the Gemini South telescope in Chile probes a swarm of young and forming stars that appear to have been shocked into existence. The group, known as N159W, is located some 158,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite to our Milky Way Galaxy. Despite the group’s distance beyond our galaxy the extreme resolution of the image presents researchers with a fresh perspective on how prior generations of stars can trigger, or shock, the formation of a new generation of stars.
“Because of the remarkable amount of detail, sensitivity, and depth in this image we identified about 100 new Young Stellar Objects, our YSOs, in this region,” says Benoit Neichel ...
Anais Bernard adds that YSO’s are very red objects, often still enshrouded in a cocoon of the natal material from which they were born. “What we are seeing appears to be groups of YSOs forming at the edge of a bubble containing ionized gas expanding from an older generation of stars within the bubble.” Astronomers refer to these areas of expanding gas as HII regions due to the abundance of ionized (energized) hydrogen gas. “In a very real sense these young stars are being shocked into existence by the expanding gas from these more mature stars,” said Bernard. ...
Deep GeMS/GSAOI near-infrared observations of N159W in the Large Magellanic Cloud - A. Bernard et al
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1605.07846 > 25 May 2016