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A visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust is the focus of this week's Hubble Picture of the Week. Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis.

Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionising radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.

See ESA press release: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2425a/

See ESA press release: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2407a/

See ESA press release: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2340a/

Low-mass stars, like the Sun, form from fragments of large clouds of gas and dust, which condense until a central object, or protostar, forms, growing by absorbing gas from a surrounding disc and ejecting the excess material through two jets at the poles. It was not known, however, whether the most massive stars, which can reach tens of times the mass of the Sun, form through this same mechanism. An international study, led by the IAA-CSIC, has obtained the most accurate image of the massive protostar NIRS3, which not only seems to suggest that, indeed, all stars form in the same way but also that this star alternates episodes of accretion and ejection of material.

See IAA press release: https://www.iaa.es/en/news/nirs3-protostar-shows-how-giant-stars-grow

This week’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features AFGL 5180, a beautiful stellar nursery located in the constellation of Gemini (The Twins). 

See ESA press release: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2110a/

Matter from the surrounding protoplanetary disk, the birthplace of planets, is channeled onto the stellar surface by magnetic fields shocking the surface at supersonic velocity.

See SciTechDaily press release: https://scitechdaily.com/columns-of-matter-that-build-up-newborn-stars-directly-observed-for-the-first-time/

Samuel Crowe (right) works with data of a massive star-forming region in the galactic center of the Milky Way galaxy. (Photo by Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications).

“Sam impressed me with his proactiveness and passion,” Fedriani said. “We made it happen and he secured a Virginia Space Grant Consortium Fellowship. We worked in massive star formation using data from some of the best telescopes in the world, including the Large Binocular Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.”

See UVa news: https://news.virginia.edu/content/goldwater-scholars-explore-frontiers-math-origins-universe

Rubén Fedriani es matemático, astrofísico y gaditano. Ordenen los factores como quieran porque no se va a alterar el producto: un investigador de 28 años que acaba de descubrir, junto al equipo que lidera desde el Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), una de las claves fundamentales en el estudio de la formación de las estrellas.

See NOBBOT press release: https://www.nobbot.com/ruben-fedriani-estrellas-astrofisica/