Observing the Prawn Nebula, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) described what it called "cosmic recycling."
According to Space.com, the astronomers were using the La Silla Observatory in Chile's 2.2-meter telescope when they spotted the nebula, which is sometimes referred to as Gum 56 or IC 4628. They noticed the newest stars in the nebula spawned from a previous generation and were poised to produce another batch.
Click here to see a video of the "cosmic recycling."
"Deeply immersed in this huge stellar nursery are three clusters of hot young stars - only a few million years old - which glow brightly in ultraviolet light," the ESO said in a statement. "It is the light from these stars that causes the nebula's gas clouds to glow. The radiation strips electrons from atoms - a process known as ionization - and when they recombine they release energy in the form of light. Each chemical element emits light in characteristic colors and the large clouds of hydrogen in the nebula are the cause of its rich red glow."
The Prawn Nebula gives off a great deal of radiation from two "extremely bright blue giant stars," Space.com reported. While they are highly potent and influence star growth when they explode and become supernovas, they live short lives.
"Given the two very unusual blue giants in this area and the prominence of the nebula at infrared and radio wavelengths, it is perhaps surprising that this region has been comparatively little studied as yet by professional astronomers," the ESO said in its statement. "Gum 56 has a diameter of around 250 light-years, but despite its huge size it has also often been overlooked by visual observers due to its faintness, and because most of the light it emits is at wavelengths not visible to the human eye."
