Circinus West: Dark nebula carrying newly formed star nests

The shadow of the celestial body, known as the Circinus West Molecular Cloud, creeps through this entire image captured from Chile, a 570-megapixel energy production dark energy camera. It is one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world. Within the opaque boundaries of this stellar nursery, the infant star ignites in cold, dense gases and dust, but the spill harbors the remaining material into space.

This meandering, shadowy shape is highlighted by the dense starry background, and is the Circinus West Molecular Cloud. It is rich in gas and dust, and is known for its newly formed star host. Molecular clouds, the cradle of star formation, are interstellar clouds, which are extremely dense and cold, so the atoms within them bond together to form molecules.

Some, such as Circinus West, are very dense and cannot allow light to pass through, giving it a dark, mottled look and earning the name Dark Nebula. The thriving population of young stars in clouds provided astronomers with rich insight into the processes that promote star formation and molecular cloud evolution.

The image was taken with a dark energy camera (decam) that was processed into the Department of Energy Sciences attached to the National Science Foundation’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-Meter Telescope at the NSF Neil Love program, Chile. It presents the western part of the larger Circinus molecular cloud, an impressive celestial object located about 2,500 light years from Earth in the constellation Circinus. It extends 180 light years and boasts a mass of 250,000 times the Sun.

Circinus West is known for carrying dozens of young star objects in the early stages of development. Despite being wrapped in dense gas and dust, these young stars inform themselves. Zoom in and various clues of their existence can be scattered throughout the Snaking Tendrils of Circinus West.

One of the newly formed signs of stars is a sparse pocket of light bursting through dark clouds. This light is emitted from an aggressively formed star, and the surrounding cavity is carved by molecular outflow. It is a major jet that was released from the protoster as a way to release the gas and momentum that accumulates during formation. These energy outflows are much easier for astronomers than the embedded stars themselves, and are powerful tools for studying stellar nursery.

Many of the bright spots found throughout the dark clouds indicate the location of the young stars that have drained the surrounding material. Multiple sources of effluent can be found within the central black plume of Cirnus West, a region known as the Cir-MMS region, known as the Cir-MMS region. Near the heart of the area, radiation from a newborn star carves the cavity through an opaque cloud. Then, in the lower left corner of the center cloud, another person announces its birth with an explosion of light.

Another indication of star formation that is not lacking in Sircinus West is the presence of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. HH objects are red red spots of nebulae commonly found near newborn stars. They form when fast moving gases thrown by stars impact the surrounding molecular clouds or slow moving gases in the interstellar medium. Visually scans Circinus West and you’ll see countless HH objects. To the left of CIR-MMS, you can see three recently discovered HH objects covering the dark cloud surface.

Studying the Circinus West runoff may provide valuable clues to the star formation process and reveal how young stars affect their environment. These various outflows serve as a natural laboratory for studying not only the life cycle of stars, but also the mechanisms governing molecular cloud dynamics and galaxy evolution. The massive runoff that occurs there may be similar to the conditions in which our solar system was formed, providing a glimpse into the processes that led to our own emergence in the universe.