An incredible new photo shows hundreds of super-hot massive blue stars that burn a million times brighter than the Sun in our solar system.
The super-hot stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light and have been detected by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The winds drive galaxy evolution and seed galaxies with the elements needed for life. Those elements are cooked up inside the stars’ nuclear fusion ovens and then injected into space as a star dies.
The new photos stem from an ambitious program, where a team of scientists and engineers collected information on almost 500 stars over three years. It’s offered new insight into how stars are formed, evolve and the impact on their surroundings.
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The study, called ULLYSES (Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards), finished in December.
It targeted blue stars in nearby galaxies deficient in elements heavier than helium and hydrogen. NASA says this form of galaxy was common at the beginnings of the universe.
“I believe the ULLYSES project will be transformative, impacting overall astrophysics – from exoplanets, to the effects of massive stars on galaxy evolution, to understanding the earliest stages of the evolving universe,” said Julia Roman-Duval, Implementation Team Lead for ULLYSES at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland.
“Aside from the specific goals of the program, the stellar data can also be used in fields of astrophysics in ways we can’t yet imagine.”
“ULLYSES observations are a stepping stone to understanding those first stars and their winds in the universe, and how they impact the evolution of their young host galaxy,” said Roman-Duval.
The team looked at 220 stars and combined observations with 275 additional stars from the Hubble archive.
Researchers also looked at young stars smaller than our Sun, seeming cooler and redder than the star we know. In their formative years, the unleash a torrent of high-energy radiation, including X-ray and ultraviolet light blasts.
As they grow, they gather material from planet-forming disks of dust and gas in their surroundings, with their blistering ultraviolet light affecting the evolution of these disks as they form planets.
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