Birth of a Star

Basic Information

This site tells the story of the history of the universe. Click Earlier and Later to follow the story. Note: Many facts have been simplified to make them easier to understand.

Figure 1

The squashing of the gas and dust as it enters a spiral arm of the Galaxy makes new stars form all the time. The gas collects in cold dark clouds like the one shown here, and stars form inside it, often in groups of several tens of stars. It is unfortunate that star birth happens in these cloudy cocoons, because they make it difficult for us to watch what is happening. In particular we cannot tell how easy it is for planets to form around new stars.

For information on the nearest star to us, click here.

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Figure 1 Credit
Stars are forming in this cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16), 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.

Photograph taken by Hubble Space Telescope, ref: WFPC2 PRC95-44a STScl OPO Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and NASA. Photographer: HST (Goddard); Date: Nov 2, 1995

This image was created with support from Space Telescope Science Institute, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., from NASA contract NAS5-26555, and is reproduced with permission from AURA/STScI.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html

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