NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Finds Stellar Incubators With Massive Star Embryos

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered a hatchery for massive
stars.

A new striking image from the infrared telescope shows a vibrant
cloud called the Trifid Nebula dotted with glowing stellar
“incubators.” Tucked deep inside these incubators are rapidly
growing embryonic stars, whose warmth Spitzer was able to see for
the first time with its powerful heat-seeking eyes.

The new view offers a rare glimpse at the earliest stages of massive
star formation – a time when developing stars are about to burst
into existence.

“Massive stars develop in very dark regions so quickly that is hard
to catch them forming,” said Dr. Jeonghee Rho of the Spitzer Science
Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.,
principal investigator of the recent observations. “With Spitzer,
it’s like having an ultrasound for stars. We can see into dust
cocoons and visualize how many embryos are in each of them.”

The new false-color image can be found at
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media . It was presented today at the
205th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego,
Calif.

The Trifid Nebula is a giant star-forming cloud of gas and dust
located 5,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
Previous images taken by the Institute for Radioastronomy millimeter
telescope in Spain show that the nebula contains four cold knots, or
cores, of dust. Such cores are “incubators” where stars are born.
Astronomers thought the ones in the Trifid Nebula were not yet ripe
for stars. But, when Spitzer set its infrared eyes on all four
cores, it found that they had already begun to develop warm stellar
embryos.

“Spitzer can see the material from the dark cores falling onto the
surfaces of the embryonic stars, because the material gets hotter as
gravity draws it in,” said Dr. William T. Reach of the Spitzer
Science Center, co-author of this new research. “By measuring the
infrared brightness, we can not only see the individual embryos but
determine their growth rate.”

The Trifid Nebula is unique in that it is dominated by one massive
central star, 300,000 years old. Radiation and winds emanating from
the star have sculpted the Trifid cloud into its current cavernous
shape. These winds have also acted like shock waves to compress gas
and dust into dark cores, whose gravity caused more material to fall
inward until embryonic stars were formed. In time, the growing
embryos will accumulate enough mass to ignite and explode out of
their cores like baby birds busting out of their eggs.

Because the Trifid Nebula is home to just one massive star, it
provides astronomers a rare chance to study an isolated family unit.
All of the newfound stellar embryos are descended from the nebula’s
main star. Said Rho, “Looking at the image, you know exactly where
the embryos came from. We use their colors to determine how old they
are. It’s like studying the family tree for a generation of stars.”

Spitzer discovered 30 embryonic stars in the Trifid Nebula’s four
cores and dark clouds. Multiple embryos were found inside two
massive cores, while a sole embryo was seen in each of the other
two. This is one of the first times that clusters of embryos have
been observed in single cores at this early stage of stellar
development.

“In the cores with multiple embryos, we are seeing that the most
massive and brightest of the bunch is near the center. This implies
that the developing stars are competing for materials, and that the
embryo with the most material will grow to be the largest star,”
said Dr. Bertrand Lefloch of Observatoire de Grenoble, France, co-
author of the new research.

Spitzer also uncovered about 120 small baby stars buried inside the
outer clouds of the nebula. These newborns were probably formed
around the same time as the main massive star and are its smaller
siblings.

Other authors of this work include Dr. Giovanni Fazio, Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the
Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA’s Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. Science operations are conducted at
the
Spitzer Science Center, Pasadena, Calif. JPL is a division of
Caltech.

The new Spitzer image is a combination of data from the telescope’s
infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. The infrared
array camera was built by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.; its development was led by Fazio. The multiband
imaging photometer was built by Ball Aerospace Corporation, Boulder,
Colo., the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Boeing North American,
Canoga Park, Calif. The instrument’s development was led by
Dr.George Rieke, University of Arizona.

Additional information about the Spitzer Space Telescope is
available at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu .