VLT Captures Stunning New Image of Baby Stars in the Constellation Ara

Scientists have captured a spectacular new image of the southern constellation of Ara with the help of the VLT Survey Telescope in Chile. The new picture reveals a treasure trove of celestial objects, including star clusters, emission nebulae and active star-forming regions.

Ara is located about 4,000 light-years from Earth. In the center of the image is the open star cluster NGC 6193. This star cluster contains about 30 bright stars and is forming in the heart of the Ara OB1 association. The two brightest stars in this cluster are very hot giant stars and together, they provide the main source of illumination for the nearby emission nebula, the Rim Nebula; you can see it visible to the right of the cluster.

The stellar association itself is a large grouping of loosely bound stars that have not yet completely drifted away from their initial formation site. OB association, in particular, consist largely of very young blue-white stars which are about 100,000 times bright than our own sun and are 10 to 50 times more massive.

The Rim Nebula can be seen in the form of the prominent wall of dark and bright clouds. These clouds create a boundary between an active star-forming region within the molecular cloud, known as RCW 108, and the rest of the association. As the cloud creates new stars, though, it's also being eroded by the winds and radiation emitted by previous stars and by supernova explosions. This means that the star-forming region is likely to disappear in just a few million years.

This image isn't just one image, though; it's actually created from more than 500 individual pictures taken through four different color filters. The total exposure time was more than 56 hours. The resulting picture, though, is definitely worth it.

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