European Space Agency (ESA) published new image taken from the Hubble Space Observatory. By tradition, a festive composition was chosen before Christmas. Multi-colored stars are scattered across a bright red background like holiday lights or glittering snow. Particular attention is paid to a small “clump” of cosmic dust and gases in the form of a tadpole, which is very far from its native environment. From such “tadpoles” stars are born.
In the image we see a section of the Westerhout 5 nebula. It is located at a distance of 7000 light years from Earth. In addition to the colorful atmosphere, the picture reveals many interesting details. In particular, the “tadpole” shown in the photograph is so-called evaporating gaseous globules (frEGGs) that float freely in space. Object catalog name: [KAG2008] globe 13 is J025838.6+604259.
Gas evaporating globules (EGGs) were discovered relatively recently and mainly on the summits of the Pillars of Creation, whose iconic images were taken by the Hubble Observatory in 1995. The frEGGs subclass is distinguished by the fact that its representatives have a pronounced “head” and a “tail”.
The high density of dust and gas inside such clusters of matter leads to the fact that the process of photoevaporation in them is more difficult than in the surrounding more rarefied matter of the nebula. Typically, photoevaporation is caused by hot, young stars. They emit intense ultraviolet light, which ionizes the gas and disperses (evaporates) it. The denser globules prevent ionization from penetrating inside and dispersing their substance. Therefore, it is believed that it is in the globules that conditions are created for the emergence of protostars. From this “tadpole” in the Hubble image, a star will also one day be born.
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