Astronomers gaze into 'dark nebula' 60 times the size of the solar system (video) (2025)

Astronomers have discovered a dense stellar nursery packed with infant stars in a vast "cosmic ink blot."

The team made the discovery using one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world: the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

One dead giveaway of newborn stars is occasional pockets of light punctuating the inky tendrils of the molecular cloud.

These are created during star formation when so-called "protostars" — stars that haven't yet gathered enough material to trigger the fusion of hydrogen to helium in their cores —  launch jets of material into space, carving cavities in the dense molecular gas and dust.

Astronomers find these high-energy outflows are easier to see than the protostars that launch them. That is because protostars are still wrapped in natal blankets of gas and dust from which they continue to gather mass on their journey to becoming main-sequence stars like the sun.

Multiple outflows can be seen in the central black tendril of the Circinus West molecular cloud, named the Cir-MMS region.

At the heart of the Cir-MMS region is a large cavity that is being cleared by radiation blasting out for an infant star. Another stellar newborn is clearing a similar cavity at the bottom left of the Cir-MMS region.

The abundance of "Herbig-Haro" (HH) objects in Circinus West is another indication of active star formation.

HH objects are glowing red patches of nebulous gas and dust commonly found near newborn stars. They are created when fast-moving gas ejected by stars slams into slower-moving surrounding gas. Circinus West is packed with such objects, punctuating the dark lanes of gas and dust.

It isn't just newborn stars that populate Circinus West. This molecular cloud is also home to many stars at the other end of the stellar cycle of life and death.

Planetary nebulas, seen by the DECam in Circinus West as red blotches, are the remains of red giant stars, stellar bodies that have reached the end of their hydrogen supplies and their main sequence lifetimes.

At this point, they shed their outer layers, with this material dispersing and cooling, creating a planetary nebula (which somewhat confusingly actually have nothing to do with planets).

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The team behind this research hopes that by studying the infant and aging stars of Circinus West and their outflows can reveal more about how they shape their immediate environments

Ultimately, this could reveal the processes that govern the evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way.

Robert Lea

Senior Writer

RobertLeais a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.