James Webb discovers a super star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Thanks to data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and ALMA, astronomers have managed to detect a super star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is an important discovery that provides a better understanding of how star formation occurred in the young Universe.

A super star cluster in an artist’s impression. Source: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/S.Dagnello

About 6-7 billion years ago, super star clusters were the main way for new stars to form in the Universe. They produced hundreds of stars every year. Since then, this form of star formation has gone downhill. Now super star clusters are very rare: until recently, astronomers knew only two such objects in our Milky Way and another in the Large Magellanic Cloud — a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of ours.

Now this list has been enriched with another supercollision. The discovery was made with the help of JWST and ALMA. During the observations, they managed to discover a previously unknown stellar supergroup, designated H72.97-69.39. It’s estimated to be only 100,000 years old. It is 160,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

So far, JWST and ALMA have managed to detect 97 young stellar objects in H72.97-69.39. The most massive ones are collected near its center, while the less massive ones are distributed along the margins. They also managed to reveal a single massive young star, which was previously thought to be a single massive young star, actually turned out to be a cluster of five protostars. 

Composite image of a section of the Large Magellanic Cloud containing a newly discovered super star cluster. Source: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/S.Dagnello

Previous ALMA observations have revealed two colliding filaments of dust and gas several light-years long in this region. H72.97-69.39 is at the point where they collide. According to scientists, the collision of filaments of molecular gas may be the catalyst needed to create a super star cluster.

According to scientists, the Large Magellanic Cloud contains half as many heavy elements as our Solar System. This means that star formation conditions in this region are similar to what they were 6-7 billion years ago. This gives astronomers the opportunity to use the supergroup as a sort of time machine to get a better idea of what the young Universe was like.

According to Almaobservatory.org

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