Ultrasound of a star at birth

1999/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

An international group of astronomers has achieved for the first time the images of a star born within a dust cloud thanks to an infrared detector. The team formed by Elizabeth Lada of the University of Florida, Charles Lada of Harvard-Smithsonian and Joao Alvares of the Southern European Observatory, has discovered a star that is being born within the dark cloud Barnard 68 thanks to a telescope of the Chilean Observatory La Silla de los Andes. The Dark Clouds are formed by gas and molecular dust and are one of the coldest objects in the Universe.

According to astronomers, stars condense into these clouds of dust and gas and when they reach the size and critical mass they light up like the sun. The Dark Clouds have been detected so far with radio telescopes, but the signals obtained have not been very clear. However, at near-infrared frequencies one can observe the distribution of mass inside the cloud and therefore the formation of stars.