Formation of stars:
How Hubble observes stars as they form from huge dust clouds
The important clues about star formation lie hidden behind the veil of the dusty, and often
very beautiful, star forming molecular clouds. Astronomers turn their eyes to the birth of other
stars and stellar systems in neighbouring stellar ‘maternity wards’ and use these to see a replay of the events that created our own Solar System.
Inside the Orion Nebula
The large mosaic of 15 Hubble images showing the central part of the Orion complex is
one of the most detailed images of a star forming region ever made.
Peering through dust
Dust clouds scatter visible light, but let infrared light through unimpeded, meaning infrared observations are often the only way to see young stars. During the servicing mission in
2009 the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) was installed. An instrument designed to make detailed images both in visible light and in infrared. The WFC3 offers greatly improved capabilities in the infrared compared to what was possible before.
WFC3’s images of the Carina Nebula made in visible light show dense clouds of dust and
gas. But the images taken by the camera of the same region in infrared make the dust
fade, leaving just a faint outline of its location. The young stars forming inside the cloud are
suddenly revealed.
This is a series of close-up views of the complex gas structures in a small portion of the Carina
Nebula. The nebula is a cold cloud of predominantly hydrogen gas. It is laced with dust, which
makes the cloud opaque. The cloud is being eroded by a gusher of ultraviolet light from young
stars in the region. They sculpt a variety of fantasy shapes, many forming tadpole-like structures.
In some frames, smaller pieces of nebulosity can be seen freely drifting, such