Star formation

Fresh research has cast doubt on the theory that energetic outbursts from young stars blows away the cocoon of gas from which they formed, which in turn prevents them from growing any further.

According to the results of a new study, stars orbiting near the centers of massive clusters have a much harder time forming planets than their smaller siblings located nearer the edge, and they may have themselves to blame.

ESO has released the most detailed view to date of the ominous Lupus 3 dark nebula, one of the closest star formation regions to our Sun. Lupus 3 is located roughly 600 light-years from Earth, and is known to host a population of young stellar bodies and protostars.

With intense gravity and radiation, the region around the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy was thought to be too harsh for star formation. But now almost a dozen young rebellious stars have been spotted there anyway, triggering a rethink of our understanding of how stars are born.

​​A team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a gigantic tsunami of stars and interstellar material that has created striking eyelid-shaped formations in a distant spiral galaxy.

​The Hubble telescope has captured an image of a chaotic region of star formation located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC is a satellite galaxy roughly one tenth the diameter of the Milky Way, with around one hundredth the mass.

​An international team of astronomers has succeeded in capturing the most comprehensive infrared view of the famous Orion Nebula to date, highlighting a surprising amount of failed stars and small planetary bodies.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has succeeded in imaging star formation regions in a distant galaxy, with a resolution six times greater than that achievable by the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA's venerated Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking image of the larger galaxy NGC 7714 colliding with its smaller companion NGC 7715. A similar cataclysmic collision is due to take place between our own galaxy and our closest neighbor the Andromeda galaxy in around four billion years.

Using the ALMA group of radio telescopes, astronomers have discovered a carbon-based molecule with a branched structure – a common feature in molecules that are required for life to form – within a giant gas cloud in the star-forming region of Sagittarius B2.

A newly-released picture taken by the Hubble Telescope is adding color to the Deep Field surveys by detecting 10,000 galaxies in the ultraviolet spectrum that would otherwise be impossible to detect.

A team of astronomers have developed a computer simulation called "Illustris," which took five years to program and, for the first time, can recreate the evolution of the Universe in high fidelity.