BULLETIN

Spiralling stars give window into early Universe

Swirling rivers of gas could create a boom in star formation

The spiral motion of stars inside a stellar nursery could help astronomers understand how star formation shaped the early Universe. Two new studies used 11 years of observations by Hubble and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to measure the motions of stars in stellar nursery NGC 346, located in the Small Magellenic Cloud. The region is poor in heavy elements, similar to galaxies from around two to three billion years after the Big Bang, making it an excellent proxy for studying these systems.

“A spiral is really the good, natural way to feed star formation from the outside toward the centre of the cluster,” says Peter Zeidler from the Space Telescope Science Institute, who led the VLT observations. “It’s the most efficient way that stars and gas fuelling more star formation can move towards the centre.” hubblesite.org