Using powerful telescopes peering into deep space, astronomers have drawn back the veil on one of the mysteries of the universe to confirm a key theory about the formation of massive stars, the journal Nature reported last week.
Images obtained by NASA’s orbital Spitzer Space Tele-scope and from a ground-based European telescope showed a dusty disc closely encircling a newly-born but huge star.
It is the first direct evidence that very large stars — those with masses at least 10 times that of the Sun — are born in the same way as their smaller brethren, from a disk-shaped cloud of dust and gas.
A competing theory was that massive stars were formed from smaller stars that merged.
“This is the first time we could image the inner regions of the disc around a massive young star,” said Stefan Kraus of the European Southern Observatory.
“Our observations show that formation works the same for all stars, regardless of mass.”
The astronomers looked at a large star known as IRAS 13481-6124, about 20 times the mass of the Sun, located about 10,000 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus. (AFP)
《自然》科學雜誌上周報導，天文學家使用大型天文望遠鏡觀測外太空，證明了「巨星」形成的某個重要理論，為這個神秘的領域掀開面紗。
美國航太總署安置在軌道上的史匹哲太空望遠鏡，及歐洲地面望遠鏡所得到的影像顯示，某個新生的龐大星體周圍緊緊環繞著盤狀星塵。
這是首次發現直接證據證明這種超大星體（質量至少是太陽十倍）的誕生，和較小的星體一樣，都是由盤狀的氣塵雲組成。
持相反論點的理論認為，「巨星」是由較小的星體集結而成。
歐洲南天文台的史蒂芬•克勞斯說：「這是我們首次成功取得環繞新生巨星盤狀霧團內部的影像。」
「依照我們的觀察，無論其質量大小，所有星體都是這樣形成的。」
天文學家觀察的這個龐大星體名為IRAS 13481-6124，位於人馬座內，距離地球約一萬光年，質量約比太陽大二十倍。
（法新社╱翻譯：吳岱璟）
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