An Island of Calm at the Violent Heart of the Galaxy

Westerhout 51 nebula in Aquila – one of the largest star factories in the Milky Way (Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The centre of the Milky Way is one of the most violent places in the Galaxy, a churning storm of gas moving faster than sound, and about the last spot you would expect a star to be born. Yet astronomers mapping that chaos with the ALMA telescope have stumbled on a hidden pocket of calm, where the gas slows, settles and quietly begins gathering itself into the seeds of new stars. The find suggests stars may take their first steps the same way everywhere, even here, and that our own Sun was likely born from just such an island of stillness, billions of years ago.

Universe Today
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