Hubble Shows Torrential Outflows from Infant Stars May Not Stop Them from Growing

Released Thursday, March 18, 2021

ID: 13320

- Produced by:
- Paul R. Morris

Though our galaxy is an immense city of at least 200 billion stars, the details of how they formed remain largely cloaked in mystery.

Scientists know that stars form from the collapse of huge hydrogen clouds that are squeezed under gravity to the point where nuclear fusion ignites. But only about 30 percent of the cloud’s initial mass winds up as a newborn star. Where does the rest of the hydrogen go during such a terribly inefficient process?

For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Paul Morris: Lead Producer

Additional Visualizations:
Zoom In To Star Formation: ESA, Silicon Worlds
Wide Image of Orion Complex: Image courtesy of Rogelio Bernal Andreo, DeepSkyColors.com
Herschel and Rosette Nebula: ESA - C. Carreau
Space Cloud: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
Zoom out of Milky Way: ESA, Silicon Worlds

Music Credits:
"Winter Solstice" by Laetitia Frenod [SACEM] via Koka Media [SACEM], Universal Publishing Production Music France [SACEM], and Universal Production Music.