admin Star formation is an awe-inspiring and mysterious cosmic phenomenon that has long piqued the curiosity of astronomers. But the process of converting the dust and gas mountains into radiant energy power plants remains obscured by dense dust layers.
To combat this, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, is active. VISTA, which can penetrate dust clouds with infrared vision, has been scanning his five neighboring star-forming regions for five years. Over a million images have been compiled into VISIONS (VISTA Star Formation Atlas), an epic cosmic atlas.
The
VISIONS Atlas contains five constellations: Orion, Ophiuchus, Chameleon, Australis Corona, and Lupus, all located at a relatively small cosmic distance of 1,500 light-years from Earth. From massive stars brighter than the sun, to faint stars with a fraction of their mass, to newborn stars surrounded by dusty disks with planet-forming potential, the belief in stellar life is growing. It embodies incredible diversity.
VISIONS Atlas deciphers these star children with crystal clear clarity, mapping their position, color and movement. It provides a vivid depiction of the dust clouds they inhabit, revealing interesting features such as filaments, bubbles and jets. This visual delight also serves as a rich scientific repository for studying the birth and evolution of stars.
Stefan Meingast, an astronomer at the University of Vienna and the lead author of the study, said the faint infrared light likely represents an object never seen before: a very low-mass star or a brown dwarf. Kudos to the VISIONS project for finding the source. This is an extraordinary feat because these objects are too small to sustain nuclear fusion and difficult to spot with conventional telescopes.
VISIONS Atlas serves as a comprehensive picture of current star formation and as a basis for future observations. The completion of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile, will provide an opportunity to study even deeper the details of individual newborn stars and planets.
The VISIONS project is a major breakthrough in astronomy and demonstrates the power of infrared observations. By peering through the dark dust, VISTA was able to get an unprecedented glimpse into the secret life of the stars. This achievement ushers in an era of deeper understanding and exploration of stellar phenomena in our universe. Another notable achievement of
VISIONS was measuring the motion of young stars over several years, providing insight into their interactions with their parent clouds and their surroundings.
