14 DAY TRIAL // Taking advantage of their exquisite vantage point in the Chilean Andes, astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) used the organization's MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory to image the interesting clouds floating around a star cluster known as NGC 3572.
What makes these clouds so interesting is the way in which they have been sculpted into bubble-like features, affectionately known as elephant trunks. The process was triggered by intense solar winds coming from the numerous young, blue stars that make up the cluster.
The brightest objects in this image are massive stars that will only live for a few hundred million years. Since they are a lot heavier than the Sun, they will end their lives when their cores will no longer be able to support nuclear fusions.
When this happens, the stars will explode in massive supernova events that will destroy these gas formations, and give birth to new nebulae. The cores of the exploding stars will collapse to form a new generation of neutron stars or black holes, astronomers say.