Death and Birth of Stars

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) have found a long-sought ‘missing link’ between supernova explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and those that don’t. The scientists found that a stellar explosion seen in 2012 has many characteristics expected of one that generates a powerful burst of gamma rays, yet no such burst occurred.

A pair of images of a young star, made 18 years apart, has revealed a dramatic difference that is providing astronomers with a unique, ‘real-time’ look at how massive stars develop in the earliest stages of their formation.

For the first time, astronomers have caught a multiple-star system in the beginning stages of its formation, and their direct observations of this process give strong support to one of several suggested pathways to producing such systems.