14 DAY TRIAL // Just 8,800 light-years from our planet, a ginormous cloud of gas and dust is now busy trying to become a mom. As it turns out, it's doing a pretty good job at it, astronomers say.
The cloud, dubbed NGC 7538, is located in the constellation Cepheus, and scientists like to refer to it as a stellar nursery. Apparently, its mass is the equivalent of about 400,000 suns put together.
With the help of the Herschel Space Observatory, researchers have recently managed to gain a better understanding of its makeup. Thus, the cloud is said to house several clumps of materials, as well as an odd-looking ring.
According to Phys Org, it is these clumps of material that researchers say have the potential to birth massive stars sometime in the future. As far as the ring is concerned, however, brainiacs are clueless about where it came from and what it is doing there.
“We have looked at NGC 7538 with Herschel and identified 13 massive, dense clumps where colossal stars could form in the future,” researcher Cassandra Fallscheer says in a statement.
“In addition, we have found a gigantic ring structure and the weird thing is, we're not at all sure what created it,” the researcher goes on to explain.
The ring, visible in the photo above, measures about 35 light-years across its long axis, and 25 light-years across its short one. If astronomers' estimates are correct, it holds the mass equivalent of 500 suns.