Scientists Discover 'Stellar Circle Of Life' In NASA Photo

A stellar "circle of life" was discovered as found in a NASA photo.

CBS News reported that astronomers have discovered a pattern in the stars' life cycle that gives them a new way in studying star evolution.

A photo taken by scientists at NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with the use of Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii captured a giant cloud called Cygnus X-3 together with a smaller cloud dubbed as "Little Friend."

As shown in the photo, bright X-rays were found in Cygnus X-3 as a result of a large short-lived star being eaten by another black hole also known as neuron star nearby. Meanwhile, the "Little Friend" on its upper left side, which is a dense cloud of gas and dust, is a Bok globule that gives birth to new stars.

According to NASA officials, the Little Friend is located about 20,000 lightyears from Earth. This makes it the farthest of all Bok globules recorded. Its slight nearness to Cygnus X-3 makes it possible for astronomers to figure out the giant cloud's distance from the planet.

Astronomers were able to confirm that the Little Friend is, in fact, a Bok globule when they have detected carbon dioxide molecules coming out from it. A jet or outflow inside the Little Friend also proved that a star has actually started to form in it.

"Typically, astronomers study Bok globules by looking at the visible light they block or the radio emission they produce," said study co-author Lia Corrales at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "With the Little Friend, we can examine this interstellar cocoon in a new way using X-rays - the first time we have ever been able to do this with a Bok globule."

This study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.