74 Scientific American, December 2019
BABY STARS
MORE THAN 1,400 blue and orange points
of light here are newly formed stars in this
dense nebula, which is visible to the naked eye
in the middle of the constellation Orion’s sword.
Chandra’s sharp x-ray vision penetrates the
dense gas and dust, revealing the new stars
that are hidden from traditional visible-light
telescopes. Young stars are hot and violent as
gravity pulls in matter, magnetic fields acceler-
ate it, and winds blow it out again as a star
forms and begins to shine.
X-RAY: NASA, CXC, PENN STATE UNIV., AND E. FEIGELSON AND
K. GETMAN ET AL.; OPTICAL: NASA, ESA, STSCI AND M. ROBBERTO ET AL.© 2019 Scientific American