SPACE.com -- Hubble Reveals Destruction Among the Brightest Stars

This is the Centaurus constellation region in the Southern sky. The Thackary globules reside within the constellation. Centaurus is noted for its bright stars. Click to enlarge.

This is an 82 light-year-wide view of IC 2944, the emission nebula located in constellation Centaurus. IC 2944 contains the dark globules which the Hubble Space Telescope recently revealed to astronomers. Click to enlarge.

Between the constellations Southern Cross and Centaurus, lies the large, almost featureless emission nebula, IC 2944. Against this uniform backdrop with just a smattering of stars, the Hubble Space Telescope closely spied Thackary's globules. This view is about one light-year wide. Click to enlarge.

This is the Hubble Space Telescope image of IC 2944, the region surrounding Thackery's globules. IC 2944 is filled with gas anddust and is illuminated and heated by a loose cluster of stars that are much hotter and much more massive than our Sun. Click to enlarge.

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	Hubble Reveals Destruction Among the Brightest Stars By SPACE.com Staff posted: 09:00 am ET 03 January 2002

Hidden 5,900 light-years within the Southern constellation Centaurus, ill-fated clouds of dust and gas are burning into oblivion from the radiation of surrounding gigantic stars

Hidden 5,900 light-years within the Southern constellation Centaurus, ill-fated clouds of dust and gas are burning into oblivion from the radiation of surrounding gigantic stars.

The phenomenon is seen in a new Hubble Space Telescope image released today. The photograph has helped astronomers study the intricate structure of these massive clouds, called globules, and the destructive fate that they face.

The globules are nearly 1.4 light-years across, and together they are equal in mass to more than 15 of our Suns. Despite their heft, they are heavily fractured because of the forces tearing them apart.

These forces are thought to come from the surrounding stars, which are much hotter and massive than our Sun.

The Centaurus constellation contains two of the top ten brightest stars in the universe. The stars' powerful ultraviolet radiation heats up the gasses in the region, which causes the globules to churn in constant agitation.

Astronomers theorize that these globules and others like them are dense clumps of gas and dust that existed before surrounding stars were born. But once the stars "turned on" and began to irradiate their surroundings, the less dense areas were burned away, and the clumps became visible.

Had the appearance of the large stars been delayed, astronomers believe it is likely that the clumps would have collapsed and formed several low-mass stars, like the Sun.

A hydrogen-emission image taken in Feb.1999 with the Hubble Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, by collaborators from the University of Hawaii, revealed the outline of the dark globules. The Baltimore-based Hubble Heritage Team produced additional images in Feb. 2001 that established the true color of the region.

The new image was created by combining the previous work. Besides finding that the clouds were ill-fated clouds of proto-stars, the astronomers found that the largest of the globules in this image is actually two overlapping clouds.

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