The European Southern Observatory’s appropriately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) will celebrate 15 years of operation come May 25 – 15 years well spent, according to scientists who have employed it in their studies of the infinite expanse of space.
Since first opening for business in 1998, the four original giant telescopes have seen new additions, including the four small Auxiliary Telescopes that form part of the VLT Interferometer.
To celebrate the occasion, the VLT captured the sharpest view of the stellar nursery IC 2944 ever taken from Earth.
Lying 6,500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus, the nebula is one of many in the region of space it occupies.
Emission nebulae like IC 2944 are largely composed of hydrogen gas that glows in a distinctive shade of red, as seen in the photo taken by the VLT. The reason for the coloring resides in its intense radiation from the many brilliant infant stars contained within.
Especially striking in the photo are the opaque, ink-blot-like clouds known as Bok globules. Named after the Dutch-American astronomer who first drew attention to them in the 1940s as possible sites of star formation, they are cold clouds of opaque dust.
And while this particular set, nicknamed the Thackeray Globules, are under fierce bombardment from the ultraviolet radiation from young, nearby stars, globules in quieter locations will often collapse to form new stars.
Those pictured in the picture taken by the VLT, however, will never have that chance given that they are “being eroded away and also fragmenting, rather like lumps of butter dropped into a hot frying pan,” according to an ESO press release.
Generally, Bok globules are a headache for scientists trying to study them because they are opaque to visible light. For this reason, if researchers are to have any hope of pursuing their inner workings, other tools are needed, including observations in the infrared or in the submillimeter parts of the spectrum in which case the dust clouds, just a few above absolute zero, appear bright.
Similar studies performed by scientists Thackeray globules confirm there is no star formation currently taking place within them.