forming new stars tagged posts

Milky Way’s Neighbors Pick up the Pace

Taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Gaia Satellite, the maps show the relative abundance of heavy elements (elements heavier than helium) in the stars. Yellow indicates fewer heavy elements and purple indicates more heavy elements.
Credit: David Nidever (NOAO/Montana State University) and the SDSS collaboration.

After slowly forming stars for the first few billion years of their lives, the Magellanic Clouds, near neighbors of our own Milky Way galaxy, have upped their game and are now forming new stars at a fast clip. This new insight into the history of the Clouds comes from the first detailed chemical maps made of galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Named for explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who led the first European expedition to circumnavigate the globe, the Large and Small ...

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