Star Formation in Galaxy M83 - Star Birth in Spiral galaxy M83 - Close-up of...

Star Formation in Galaxy M83 - Star Birth in Spiral galaxy M83 - Close-up of star-forming zones in the arms and near the nucleus (white region on the right) of the M83 galaxy. In red appear the hydrogen clouds in which the stars are born. The new stars are concentrated in blue clusters visible by hundreds on this image. The galaxy M83 (NGC 5236) is located about 15 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Hydra. This galaxy is intermediate between a classic spiral and a barree spiral. Image obtained by the Hubble space telescope with its wide field camera 3 (WFC3) in August 2009. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. The sharp “” eye”” of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants. The image, taken in August 2009, provides a close - up view of the myriad stars near the galaxy's core, the bright whitish region at far right. WFC3's broad wavelength range, from ultraviolet to near - infrared, reveals stars at different stages of evolution, allowing astronomers to dissect the galaxy's star - formation history. The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark dust lanes, the backbone of the spiral arms. These fledgling stars, only a few million years old, are bursting out of their dusty cocoons and producing bubbles of reddish glowing hydrogen gas. The excavated regions give a colorful “” Swiss cheese””” appearance to the spiral arm. Gradually, the young stars' fierce winds (streams of charged particles) blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters. These stars are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The older populations of stars are not as blue. A bar of stars,