New York : Astronomers have discovered what may be the first known example of a globular cluster about to be born – an incredibly massive and extremely dense yet star-free cloud of molecular gas.
Globular clusters – a dazzling group of up to a million ancient stars – are among the oldest objects in the universe. Though plentiful in and around many galaxies, newborn examples are rare and the conditions necessary to create new ones have never been detected till date.
“We may be witnessing one of the most ancient and extreme modes of star formation in the universe,” Kelsey Johnson, astronomer at University of Virginia in Charlottesville and lead author of the paper said, Science Daily reported.
This remarkable object looks like it was plucked straight out of the very early universe. This object, which the astronomers playfully refer to as the “Firecracker,” is located approximately 50 million light-years away from Earth.
What makes the “Firecracker” unique is its extraordinary mass, comparatively small size and apparent lack of stars. With Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimetre Array (ALMA) telescope, the astronomers were able to find and study in detail a pristine example of such an object before stars forever change their unique characteristics.
