#star formation

#star formation

Last year, the James Webb Space Telescope made this observation of a dwarf irregular galaxy named I Zwicky 18, some 59 million light-years away from Earth. At the heart of the galaxy are two major star-forming regions surrounded by clouds of gas that have been sculpted by the stellar winds of the hot, young stars.

NASA, ESA, STScI

The researchers used cosmological simulations to recreate the first 700 million years of cosmic history, focusing on the formation of a single dwarf galaxy. In their virtual galaxy, waves of stars were born in short, explosive bursts as cold gas clouds collapsed inside a dark matter halo. Instead of a single starburst episode followed by a steady drizzle of star formation as Garcia expected, there were two major rounds of stellar birth. Whole swarms of stars flared to life like Christmas tree lights.