Massive Stars Found in Spitzer Reveals Hidden Cloud

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the recent observations made by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which revealed massive stars within a cloud of gas and dust. Participants explore the implications of these findings, including the nature of the stars, their characteristics, and potential connections to the origins of life.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Dr. William Reach describes the observations as unprecedented, noting that the massive stars are disrupting the surrounding gas and dust cloud.
  • Some participants question whether the organic compounds found in the cloud, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, could be linked to the origins of life, asking if life could have started in a nebula.
  • One participant points out the lack of size comparisons for the stars in the press release, expressing a desire for more quantitative data.
  • Another participant mentions that the press release provides luminosity estimates but not mass estimates, suggesting a correlation between luminosity and mass for main sequence stars.
  • A separate observation from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is introduced, discussing a potentially massive star forming within a circumstellar disc, which could reach a mass of approximately 40 solar masses.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express various viewpoints on the implications of the findings, particularly regarding the connection to the origins of life and the characteristics of the stars. There is no consensus on these topics, and multiple competing views remain present in the discussion.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the absence of mass estimates for the stars and the reliance on luminosity data, which may not fully capture the stars' characteristics. Additionally, the discussion touches on speculative connections between the observed compounds and the origins of life, which remain unresolved.

wolram
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http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/spitzer_reveals_hidden_massive_stars.html?1342004
"We've never seen anything like this before," said Dr. William Reach, an investigator for the latest observations and an astronomer at the Spitzer Science Center, located at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "The massive stars are ripping the cloud of gas and dust around them to shreds."

Spitzer's highly sensitive infrared detectors were able to see past the obscuring dust to the stars behind. The new false-color image spans a vast expanse of space, with DR21 at the top center. Within DR21, a dense knot of massive stars can be seen surrounded by a wispy cloud of gas and dust. Red filaments containing organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons stretch horizontally and vertically across this cloud. A green jet of gas shoots downward past the bulge of stars and represents fast-moving, hot gas being ejected from the region's biggest star.
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatic_hydrocarbon

In 2004 (at the 203rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January 2004) (American Astronomical Society, n.d.), it was reported (as cited in Battersby, 2004) that a team led by A. Witt of the University of Toledo, Ohio studied ultraviolet light emitted by the Red Rectangle nebula and found the spectral signatures of anthracene and pyrene. (No other such complex molecules had ever before been found in space.) This discovery was----
 
is this the stuff of life? did life start in a nebula?
 
I skimmed through the article and didn't see anything that compares how big the stars are to something else.
 
The PR doesn't give any mass estimates, just luminosity ones. For comparison, a main sequence star with a luminosity of 100,000 times that of the Sun would have a mass ~25x sol.

Most massive stars? Well, http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/063yrtnn.asp is pretty massive too.
 
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Curious how the ESO issued a PR earlier today ... http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-12-04.html .

It reports on observations of "the largest circumstellar disc ever detected", which may be a massive star in the process of forming. If so, the star could well become a ~40 sol one :smile:
 
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