Tales of: Extreme star birth in Carina Nebula

The beginnings of star making in Carina

The fireworks in the Carina Nebula started three million years ago when the first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen. Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are composed of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away.

The hurricane blast of stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation within the cavity is now compressing the surrounding walls of cold hydrogen. This is triggering a second stage of new star formation.

Our Sun and our solar system may have been born inside such a cosmic crucible 4.6 billion years ago. In looking at the Carina Nebula we are seeing the beginnings of star making as it commonly occurs along the dense spiral arms of a galaxy.

The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.

Hubble's far-reaching accomplishments

This jaw-dropping image of the Carina Nebula is just the latest of Hubble’s many accomplishments. During its 17 years in space, Hubble has looked close to home at our solar system planets, has gazed far into space to see galaxies in their infancy, has found evidence of dark energy, and has detected invisible matter that makes up the bulk of the material in our universe.

In our solar system neighborhood, the telescope witnessed pieces of a broken-up comet smash into Jupiter, giving the planet several “black eyes.” Hubble also spied two new moons orbiting Pluto. Beyond our solar system, the telescope took snapshots of the “last hurrah” of Sun-like stars, when they shed their outer layers of gas and begin to glow as planetary nebulae. The telescope also watched the aftermath of a supernova 1987A, the explosive death of a massive star. The Hubble observations of SN 1987A helped astronomers rewrite the textbooks on exploding stars.

Astronomers also used Hubble to conduct a census of Jupiter-sized planets residing near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The telescope found 16 alien worlds, suggesting that there may be billions of Jupiter-sized planets in our galaxy. Hubble also was used to sample the atmosphere of a known planet outside our solar system. With Hubble’s help, astronomers found sodium, oxygen, and carbon in the atmosphere of HD209458b, making the observations the first direct measurements of the chemical composition of an extrasolar planet’s atmosphere.

Gazing even farther across the universe, Hubble helped astronomers calculate a precise age for the universe. Astronomers now think the cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old.

Galaxies are everywhere in space, but Hubble looked far across our cosmos to see infant galaxies. The Hubble observations provided solid evidence that galaxies grew over time to become the giant galaxies we see today.

By witnessing bursts of light from faraway exploding stars, Hubble helped astronomers discover that an invisible, mysterious force called dark energy exists. Physicist Albert Einstein predicted its existence early last century. Astronomers made a three-dimensional map of another invisible substance called dark matter, thanks to Hubble observations. Dark matter’s gravity allows normal matter — gas, dust, and other visible material — to collect and build up into stars and galaxies.

Tales of: Extreme star birth in Carina Nebula