Gigantic cavity in space sheds new light on how stars form.
Astronomers analyzing 3D maps of the shapes and sizes of nearby molecular
clouds have discovered a gigantic cavity in space.
The sphere-shaped void, described today in the Astrophysical Journal
Letters, spans about 150 parsecs — nearly 500 light years — and is located
on the sky among the constellations Perseus and Taurus. The research team,
which is based at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian,
believes the cavity was formed by ancient supernovae that went off some 10
million years ago.
The mysterious cavity is surrounded by the Perseus and Taurus molecular
clouds — regions in space where stars form.
“Hundreds of stars are forming or exist already at the surface of this giant
bubble,” says Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for
Theory and Computation (ITC) at the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) who led
the study. “We have two theories—either one supernova went off at the core
of this bubble and pushed gas outward forming what we now call the
‘Perseus-Taurus Supershell,’ or a series of supernovae occurring over
millions of years created it over time.”
The finding suggests that the Perseus and Taurus molecular clouds are not
independent structures in space. But rather, they formed together from the
very same supernova shockwave. “This demonstrates that when a star dies, its
supernova generates a chain of events that may ultimately lead to the birth
of new stars,” Bialy explains.
Mapping Stellar Nurseries
The 3D map of the bubble and surrounding clouds were created using new data
from Gaia, a space-based observatory launched by the European Space Agency
(ESA).
Descriptions of exactly how 3D maps of the Perseus and Taurus molecular
clouds and other nearby clouds were analyzed appear in a separate study
published today in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ). Both studies make use of
a dust reconstruction created by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for
Astronomy in Germany.
The maps represent the first-time molecular clouds have been charted in 3D.
Previous images of the clouds were constrained to two dimensions.
“We’ve been able to see these clouds for decades, but we never knew their
true shape, depth, or thickness. We also were unsure how far away the clouds
were,” says Catherine Zucker, a postdoctoral researcher at the CfA who led
the ApJ study. “Now we know where they lie with only 1 percent uncertainty,
allowing us to discern this void between them.”
But why map clouds in the first place?
“There are many different theories for how gas rearranges itself to form
stars,” Zucker explains. “Astronomers have tested these theoretical ideas
using simulations in the past, but this is the first time we can use real —
not simulated — 3D views to compare theory to observation, and evaluate
which theories work best.”
The Universe at Your Fingertips
The new research marks the first time journals of the American Astronomical
Society (AAS) publish astronomy visualizations in augmented reality.
Scientists and the public may interact with the visualization of the cavity
and its surrounding molecular clouds by simply scanning a QR code in the
paper with their smartphone.
“You can literally make the universe float over your kitchen table,” says
Harvard professor and CfA astronomer Alyssa Goodman, a co-author on both
studies and founder of glue, the data visualization software that was used
to create the maps of molecular clouds.
Goodman calls the new publications examples of the “paper of the future” and
considers them important steps toward the interactivity and reproducibility
of science, which AAS committed to in 2015 as part of their effort to
modernize publications.
“We need richer records of scientific discovery,” Goodman says. “And current
scholarly papers could be doing much better. All of the data in these papers
are available online — on Harvard’s Dataverse — so that anyone can build on
our results.”
Goodman envisions future scientific articles where audio, video and enhanced
visuals are regularly included, allowing all readers to more easily
understand the research presented.
She says, “It’s 3D visualizations like these that can help both scientists
and the public understand what’s happening in space and the powerful effects
of supernovae.”
References:
“The Per-Tau Shell: A Giant Star-forming Spherical Shell Revealed by 3D Dust
Observations” by Shmuel Bialy, Catherine Zucker, Alyssa Goodman, Michael M.
Foley, João Alves, Vadim A. Semenov, Robert Benjamin, Reimar Leike and
Torsten Enßlin, 22 September 2021, Astrophysical Journal Letters.
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac1f95
22 September 2021,, Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357
Tags:
Space & Astrophysics