Astronomers have been captivated by a mysterious phenomenon occurring in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Young stars have been observed spiralling into the centre of a massive cluster of stars, an oddly shaped stellar nursery known as NGC 346. A river-like motion of gas and stars appears to be feeding star formation in this area, creating an efficient way to fuel star birth.
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a unique window into the early universe. Located at 200,000 light-years away, it is one of our closest galactic neighbors but its chemical composition is quite different than that of the Milky Way. The SMC is made up of simpler elements than our galaxy, making it similar to galaxies that were formed in the younger Universe when these heavier elements were more scarce. This means that the stars in the SMC burn hotter and use up their fuel faster than those in our Milky Way.
This provides an opportunity to study how stars form in a place much closer to the early universe. By studying the SMC, we can get a better understanding of what was happening billions of years ago when the Universe was undergoing a “baby boom” about two to three billion years after the Big Bang (the Universe is now 13.8 billion years old).
One particularly interesting object located within the SMC is NGC 346. This star formation region is only 150 light-years in diameter but has the mass of 50,000 Suns! Its unusual shape and high rate of star formation has been puzzling scientists for years. Now, thanks to the combined power of NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s VLT, we are starting to understand this mysterious star formation site better.
The results show that the process of star formation in NGC 346 is quite similar to what we observe in our own Milky Way. This adds to our understanding of how stars form and gives us new insight into how things were happening in the early universe. As Elena Sabbi from the Space Telescope Science Institute explains: “Stars are the machines that sculpt the Universe. We would not have life without them, and yet we don’t fully understand how they form. We have several models that make predictions, and some of these predictions are contradictory. We want to determine what is regulating the process of star formation, because these are the laws that we need to also understand what we see in the early Universe.”
Why stars form in a spiral pattern?
Spiral patterns are not only seen in star clusters: they are also seen in galaxies like our own Milky Way. Astronomers believe that these patterns are created by the rotation of clouds of gas and dust around a center, which is what triggers star formation. Spiral patterns are a beautiful example of how nature creates an efficient and elegant solution for star formation.
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