Astronomers have created an amazing mosaic of tiny star clusters in our galaxy’s backyard.
The mosaic, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on Thursday, reveals five vast stellar nurseries less than 1,500 light-years away.
The scientists collected more than a million images taken over five years by the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
The observatory’s infrared survey telescope was able to peer through clouds of dust and identify newborn stars.
“We can detect even the faintest sources of light, such as stars much less massive than the Sun, and reveal things we haven’t seen before,” Stefan Mengast, the mosaic’s lead author, explained in a statement.
Mengast added that the observations, which were conducted from 2017 to 2022, will help researchers better understand how stars evolve from dust.
These results complement observations of the European Space Agency’s Gaia star-mapping spacecraft, which orbits approximately 1.5 million kilometers away.
