New image reveals stars “shocked” into existence
An unprecedented view from the Gemini South telescope in Chile probes a swarm of young and forming stellar objects
Gemini South GeMS/GSAOI near-infrared image of the N159W field in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Image Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA
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 of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, who worked with PhD student Anais Bernard on the research.
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 ionised gas expanding from an older generation of stars within the bubble,” he says. Astronomers refer to these areas of expanding gas as HII regions due to the abundance of ionised (energised) hydrogen gas. “In a very real sense these young stars are being shocked into existence by the expanding gas from these more mature stars,” says Bernard.
“Without this advanced adaptive optics technology on Gemini we wouldn’t be able push our observations out to the distance of the LMC,” explains Neichel. “This gives us a unique chance to explore star formation in a different environment.”
He adds that part of the challenge is differentiating between “boring field stars” and the YSOs, which, he describes as “…the gems that make this research possible.”
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