![]() Today, seven well-known star-forming regions or molecular clouds - dense regions in space where stars can form - sit on the surface of the bubble. Using a trove of new data and data science techniques, the spacetime animation shows how a series of supernovae that first went off 14 million years ago pushed interstellar gas outwards, creating a bubble-like structure with a surface that's ripe for star formation. The Source of Our Stars: The Local Bubble ![]() While astronomers have known of its existence for decades, scientists can now see and understand the Local Bubble's beginnings and its impact on the gas around it. ![]() The paper's central figure, a 3D spacetime animation, reveals that all young stars and star-forming regions - within 500 light-years of Earth - sit on the surface of a giant bubble known as the Local Bubble. "This is really an origin story for the first time we can explain how all nearby star formation began," said astronomer and data visualization expert Catherine Zucker, who completed the work during a fellowship at the CfA. In a paper appearing today in Nature, astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) reconstruct the evolutionary history of our galactic neighborhood, showing how a chain of events beginning 14 million years ago led to the creation of a vast bubble that’s responsible for the formation of all nearby, young stars. The Earth sits in a 1,000-light-year-wide void surrounded by thousands of young stars - but how did those stars form? ![]() Four Successful Women Behind the Hubble Space Telescope's Achievements.Characterizing Planets Around Other Stars.Measuring the Universe's Expansion Rate. ![]()
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