The Hubble telescope took snapshots of young stars to understand how larger stars form.

NASA’s Hubble mission team captured images of an “infant star” as part of the Sofia Massive Star Formation Survey, which investigates how massive stars with masses more than eight times that of the Sun form.

Sometimes called baby stars or protostars, these stars are covered in thick dust that blocks out light, but Hubble’s technology can detect near-infrared radiation shining through the gaps formed by explosions of gas and dust. The resulting radiant energy provides information about areas such as structure, radiation field, and dust content.

“Researchers are looking for connections between properties of young stars, such as outflow, environment, mass, brightness, and evolutionary stage, to test theories of massive star formation,” NASA said in a statement.

baby pictures

The image below shows Cepheus A, a massive star-forming region located approximately 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. There, alongside one large, bright protostar, are a variety of baby stars, which the NASA team explained account for roughly 50% of the region’s brightness.

Cepheus A region. Image: NASA, ESA, R. Fedriani.

“Most of this region is covered in opaque dust, but light from the hidden star penetrates the outflow cavity and illuminates and energizes the region of gas and dust, creating the pink and white nebula. The pink region is the HII region, where intense ultraviolet radiation from nearby stars converts the surrounding gas cloud into glowing ionized hydrogen.”

‘Shining much closer’, the Hubble Space Telescope has also captured images of the Milky Way’s star-forming region G033.91+0.11. The speck of light in the center of the image is a reflection nebula, where light from a hidden protostar is reflected off gas and dust.

Star-forming region G033.91+0.11. Images: NASA, ESA, R Fedriani.

Finally, the Hubble image below shows star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. The bright spots are emission nebulae, glowing gas ionized by protostars buried within larger complexes of gas and dust clouds.

The protostar is surrounded by gas in an emission nebula within the star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. Images: NASA, ESA, R Fedriani.

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