The stellar pupae were discovered by chance

They called them the “yellow balls” or the yellow balls (yb). These are star nurseries, which were first discovered before Citizen Scholars He participated in the Milky Way (Mwp) project and was monitored in infrared using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

He said that the project assigned citizen scientists the task of identifying “the features associated with massive young stars with a mass greater than 10 solar masses.” Grace Wolf Chase, Lead author of the Milky Way Project article.

While carrying out this mission, citizen scientists observed compact yellow areas in medium-infrared (MIR) images taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope; These structures are located on the plane of the Milky Way.

When astronomers asked about these yellow balls, they realized that they were observing the emergence of new stars for the first time.

The researchers included yb as target organisms in the 2016 edition of the MWP and identified a list of more than 6,000 “yellow ball” sites, in more than a third of the Milky Way galaxy.

The stellar fetuses, implanted in dusty birth cocoons, are pictured just as they heat the surrounding gas and dust from which they are born.

“This allows us to relate the characteristics of the stars to their birth environment, as if a person was giving birth to a hundred children at the same time,” confirms Wolf Chase.

The research immortalizes the formation of star clusters or – in astronomical language – a primary cluster. All star blocks pass through a yellow ball court; After that, some will only form massive stars greater than 10 solar masses, while others will not experience this process.

Those who pass the yellow ball phase, between stellar winds and strong ultraviolet rays, will create the “protective bubble” state of massive star accumulation.

Yellow indicates the wavelengths that follow the complex organic particles and dust, as they are heated by very small stars embedded in their birth clouds.

A subset of 516 yellow balls was considered in the prism. A typical yellow ball is about a light-year in diameter, while a bubble can grow up to tens of light years in diameter.

Only about 20% of yellow balls will form bubbles associated with massive stars. Scientists have classified the remaining 80% as regions where stars of less mass form.

Top: An example of a yellow ball (left, circled) and a bubble (right, circled). The false-color image uses the blue, green, and red color scheme to represent the infrared wavelengths used in the Milky Way project and lead to yellow. Credit: NASA / Jpl-Caltech.