Where Stars Are Born

Dramatic new images of one of the Milky Way's most massive stellar nurseries reveals the awesome birthplace of future suns

The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) calls it "a stellar nursery where infant stars illuminate and sculpt a vast pastel fantasy of dust and gas."

It is the Omega Nebula, an interstellar cloud made up of hydrogen, helium, plasma and tiny grains of cosmic dust, also known as the "Swan Nebula" for its shape.

Now the ESO, which operates the world's most advanced collection of ground-based astronomical telescopes, has released striking new images that reveal this intensely active area of the Milky Way in dramatic detail, according to a July 7 press release.

Fifteen light-years across, the Omega Nebula has been giving birth to suns for a million years and is still producing them to this day.

Discovered around 1745 by Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, the nebula is located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius, the Latin word for "archer." Sagittarius is represented by a centaur drawing a bow.

The origin of the idea of centaurs is unknown. One theory is that a non-riding culture such as the ancient Minoans from Crete saw nomads riding on horses and mistook them as single creatures.

If that is true, then it is fitting that Sagittarius is brimming with newborn stars that may one day support life. After all, modern civilization was built on the backs of horses -- and the humans who rode them.

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image: Three-colour composite image of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17), based on images obtained with the EMMI instrument on the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory. North is down and East is to the right in the image. It spans an angle equal to about one third the diameter of the Full Moon, corresponding to about 15 light-years at the distance of the Omega Nebula. The three filters used are B (blue), V ("visual", or green) and R (red). (credit: ESO)