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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Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, there will be no Bilingual Pages. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when Bilingual Pages will also be resumed.
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