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expose-the-light:

Baby Stars

1. Beautiful newborns

In a universe of fantastic images, a newborn star is a mystical masterpiece. Cradled within the dusty arms of a nebula, a baby star seems to blink its way to a new life. The lifespan of a star is a series of sequences. A star may spend most of its life in a “main sequence phase” where nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium is happening in its core. But before this happens, it lives as a protostar, or baby star.

2. Young stars in Serpens

Here the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals the Serpens South star cluster, in which 50 or so young stars exist. They are seen as the “green, yellow, and orange-tinted specks sitting atop the black dust lane.” A supernova or galaxy collision can cause a star to form when huge clouds of hydrogen and helium collapse under mutual gravity. As the cloud collapses, it heats up and starts to spin. Since protostars are covered in dust, they can be seen only through infrared telescopes like Hubble and Spitzer. As Universe Today writes, “After about 100,000 years or so, the protostar stops growing and the disk of material surrounding it is destroyed by radiation.” Then this star, now called a T Tauri or pre-main sequence star, is visible from Earth.

3. Bubbly little star

We are used to images of babies blowing bubbles, and it looks like the infants of the cosmos do the same. This image, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, shows the HH 46/47 baby star blowing bubbles into space via powerful jets of gas. Located about 1,140 light-years from Earth, HH 46/47 is the bright white star at the middle of the image. Two bubbles reach out in opposite directions and are formed when the jets collide with the dust and gas surrounding the star

4. Young stars emerge from Orion’s head

Orion just might be the stud of our Milky Way, a fitting compliment because since the constellation takes its name from a Greek story of a legendary hunter. Pictured here is another “hatching” of baby stars located in the head of Orion. The Spitzer Space Telescope captures this area known as Barnard 30, which sits on the right side of Orion’s head. It is around 1,300 light-years away from Earth.