ESO Captures Stunning Image of Turbulent Star-Forming Region

About 5,000 light years from Earth, a cloud of gas and dust swirls in the constellation of Sagittarius. Called NGC 6559, this star-forming region has been captured in an image by the Danish 1.54-meter telescope located at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

The image itself is stunning, revealing the abundance of hydrogen located in NGC 6559. This raw material is crucial for star formation. When the region inside these clouds gathers enough material, it begins to collapse under its own gravity. The center of the material grows ever denser and hotter until thermonuclear fusion begins. Eventually, a star is born.

These brilliant, young stars shine brightly amidst the material from which they were born. Most of them are of spectral type O and B, with temperatures that range between a steaming 10,000 to 60,000 K. These stars radiate huge amounts of high energy ultraviolet light and energize the hydrogen gas still present around them in the nebula; the gas then re-emits this energy. This, in turn, produces the otherworldly, threadlike red cloud seen near the center of the image that ESO captured. This glowing red material is what is known as an emission nebula.

This object isn't just made of hydrogen gas, though. It also contains solid particles of dust made out of heavier elements, such as carbon, iron or silicon. You can see these particles in the form of the bluish patch next to the emission nebula. What is actually happening is that the light from the newly formed stars is being scattered by the microscopic particles.

Yet seeing the whole picture takes some work. In regions where these particles are very dense, the dust completely blocks the light behind it. In order to look through these dense clouds, astronomers would need to use longer wavelengths.

Even so, this image is stunning. The new techniques that are being employed to capture these pictures from space are allowing astronomers to learn more and more about the Universe we live in.