Hubble Sees Stars As They're Born

Artful Yankee writes "Space.com is reporting that the Hubble telescope revealed stars as they were being born. The article explains, 'The stars have yet to condense into small enough packages to trigger thermonuclear fusion, which is what powers stars, but they appear to be on the verge, astronomers said today.' All these amazing discoveries from Hubble and people still talk about abandoning it."

Comments

Hard to Tell which stars they're talking about

[justanyone]

I've RTFA (read the article) and looked carefully at the picture.

. Looks like a star field to me with a bunch of nebular (sp?) gas around it. It would really help if they had some kind of analysis, some additional picture with the stars in question circled or with arrows to them or something.

I've had 2 semesters of college astronomy. I understand some (rough concepts of) stellar dynamics. This article didn't go into the ways in which they determining what was going on. Does a star start fusion reactions only in the center of the star and this is hidden for some time? What does it look like then, a ball of glowing gas? How long does it take to be identifiable as a distinct object, where 'there's the star' and 'there's the edge of space' (plus or minus the coronasphere which flings off stuff like mad, IIRC).

if anyone knows how this stuff happens, in detail, can you give a pointer to it or explain here (a) what exactly does the process of stellar birth LOOK like, and (b) what did we discover about it recently...? And, Please, use all the technical terms that are appropriate, I'm both capable and interested and can look up terms later if need be... Thanks!!?!?!?!???

Re:In the name of Science...

[zulux]

But to the average american, this means nothing.

Give the average American some credit.... most of us support NASA. We've supported everything for Apollo, Voyager, Skylab, ISS and Hubble.

The questions that really needs to be asked is... why Europe is slacking off in space exploration. The *Chinese* are doing better for god's sake.