Star cluster 9.4 quadrillion miles from Earth gives universe cosmic Valentine’s Day ‘rose’

Even the universe gets flowers for Valentine’s Day.

Gemini South telescope, the other half of the International Gemini Observatory that includes Gemini North atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island, captured an image of the delicate structure forming a fiery cosmic “rose.”

The veiled NGC 2040 open cluster of young stars is located about 160,000 light-years — or 9.4 quadrillion miles — from Earth.

It fuels the growth of a cosmic flower that is a massive structure of interstellar gas known as LH 88, one of the largest active star-forming regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy.

Thousands of new stars will be born in the LH 88 region throughout the next million years. Most of the stars in the Milky Way, including our sun, were likely formed within similar open clusters.

Gemini South’s optical/infrared telescope is perfect for capturing the bright stars and diffuse glow of the NGC 2040 cluster, which contains mostly hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Those atoms emit light as they are excited by ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars. The light spans a range from the ultraviolet through visible and into infrared wavelengths.

Special filters on Gemini South allow specific colors of the emitted light to pass through, such as the deep red and orange of glowing hydrogen and light blue of glowing oxygen.

The bright white represents areas where there is an abundance of both elements.

Bright stars in the image are widely separated, but their motions through space are similar, indicating they have a common origin. The layered nebulous structures are remnants of stars that already died.

The delicate leaves of the cosmic rose were formed by the shockwaves from supernovae and stellar winds of the more than a dozen stars of O and B spectral types within the cluster.

Those massive stars lead short lives of only a few million years, during which they burn very hot before exploding as supernovae.

Energy released by the explosions feeds the formation of NGC 2040’s structure, with material expelled seeding the next generation of stars.

The beauty of the massive interstellar gas structure, like that of a rose on Earth, is fleeting.

Its cosmic corsage tells a story of death and rebirth. Within a few million years — a blink of an eye in the universe’s life — the gas and dust will either become budding young stars and planetary systems or cast off into interstellar space.

Stars formed within the cluster also will move on to journeys through their galaxy.