Youngest Stellar Embryos in Massive Clouds
Center for Astrophysics An infrared view of NGC6334, the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a giant, star-forming molecular cloud. New submillimeter observations of the southern dark complex in this cloud have uncovered the first prestellar cores (embryos of future stars) ever found in a massive cloud, but they are very cold and cannot be seen in infrared images like this one. ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA Stars form as gravity contracts the gas and dust in an interstellar cloud until cores develop that are dense enough to coalesce into stars. A dense core in the earliest phase of this process is called a starless c...
Source: miragenews.com