Dozens of planets may be taking shape in a nearby stellar hatchery, reveals a new infrared image from NASA鈥檚 Spitzer Space Telescope.
Dust in the nursery, a nebula called NGC 1333, obscures visible light from most of its nascent stars (scroll down for second image, below right). But Spitzer鈥檚 Infrared Array Camera pierced through this veil to uncover scores of stars like the Sun 鈥� but 5000 times younger.
Advertisement
鈥淭hese newborns are less than a million years old 鈥� babies by astronomical standards,鈥� says Rob Gutermuth of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who was part of the observation team. 鈥淥ur Sun may have formed in a similar environment 4.5 billion years ago.鈥�
Spitzer revealed that about 80 of the young stars are surrounded by dusty discs that could be forming planets. These are all crowded into a region 4 light years across 鈥� a similar-sized region of space in our Sun鈥檚 neighbourhood contains only three other stars.
鈥淚f our solar system were located inside NGC 1333, our night sky would look very different,鈥� Gutermuth says. 鈥淲e would see fewer stars since any distant stars would be hidden by the nearby dust.鈥�
The Spitzer image also reveals that the stellar nursery is being rocked by the tantrums of the baby stars. Many of the infant stars are spewing jets of material that form shock fronts when they slam into surrounding gas (shown as green on the upper image). The jets may eventually blow away the gas, preventing future stars from forming.
鈥淭he sheer number of separate jets that appear in this region is unprecedented,鈥� says CfA colleague Alicia Porras. 鈥淯ntangling them will prove quite a challenge as we try to identify which protostar is the source of each jet.鈥�
