The nebula is relatively close to Earth

Feb 3, 2010 22:01 GMT  ·  By
Hubble Space Telescope images of the young star cluster NGC 3603 showing the position of the binary star system A1
   Hubble Space Telescope images of the young star cluster NGC 3603 showing the position of the binary star system A1

A series of new astronomical observations, conducted on the nearby nebula NGC 3603, has revealed the very rare sight of a massive star at the beginning of its burning cycle. This is one of the rarest occasions when something like this becomes available for study. Most infant massive stars spend their youth enveloped in a large and dense cloud of cosmic dust and gas, and are only visible to Earth-based observers in infrared wavelengths, which gauge their heat signatures. In addition to these particular stars, various others can be observed in the same region, Space reports.

NGC 3603 is in fact a stellar nursery, or a starburst region. This means that it features mind-bogglingly massive reserves of gases such as hydrogen, and also dust, which tend to come together as clouds. When the mass of the cloud exceeds a certain threshold, it collapses under its own weight, igniting itself at the same time. This is how astrophysicists currently understand stellar formation. The size of the initial gas clouds determines the size of the ensuing stars, and the length of their burning cycle, implicitly. The largest stellar nurseries in the Universe feature hundreds, if not thousands, of such clouds, each containing a baby star, or about to collapse and form one.

The oldest starburst regions also contain very old, red stars. Occasionally, these structures burst in supernova explosions, stirring the cosmic material in the nursery, and promoting further star formation. The new images of NGC 3603 were taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The facility is operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and is located in the Atacama desert of Chile. The nebula itself is located about 22,000 light-years away from our solar system. Astronomers also highlight the fact that this nursery is home to the most massive star ever discovered.

It is part of the binary system called A1, and measurements have indicated that it is up to 116 times more massive than our own Sun, a yellow dwarf. Alongside this behemoth lie thousands of other companions, in various stages of their life, as well as three Wolf-Rayet stars, very heavy stellar bodies that shine with intense brightness. They have a very short life span, of several hundred million years, and usually go out in large-scale supernova explosions. The intensity of these explosions can briefly outshine entire galaxies.