<p>To help understand why some galaxies "burst" while others do not, an international team of astronomers have dissected a cluster of star-forming clouds at the heart of NGC 253, one of the nearest starburst galaxies to the Milky Way.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Starburst galaxies transmute gas into new stars at a dizzying pace - up to 1,000 times faster than typical spiral galaxies like the Milky Way.<br /><br />"All stars form in dense clouds of dust and gas. Scientists, however, struggled to see exactly what was going on inside starburst galaxies that distinguished them from other star-forming region," said Adam Leroy from the Ohio State University in Columbus.<br /><br />They used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile that offers the power to resolve individual star-forming structures even in distant systems.<br />Leroy and his colleagues mapped the distributions and motions of multiple molecules in clouds at the core of NGC 253 - also known as the "Sculptor Galaxy".<br /><br />Sculptor, a disk-shape galaxy currently undergoing intense starburst, is located approximately 11.5 million light-years from Earth.<br /><br />ALMA's exceptional resolution allowed the researchers to first identify 10 distinct stellar nurseries inside the heart of "Sculptor".<br /><br />The team mapped the distribution of about 40 millimetre-wavelength "signatures" from different molecules inside the centre of the galaxy.<br /><br />By comparing the concentration, distribution and motion of these molecules, the researchers were able to peel apart the star-forming clouds in Sculptor, revealing that they are much more massive, 10 times denser and far more turbulent than similar clouds in normal spiral galaxies.<br /><br />"These differences have wide-ranging implications for how galaxies grow and evolve," said Leroy who was formerly with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>
<p>To help understand why some galaxies "burst" while others do not, an international team of astronomers have dissected a cluster of star-forming clouds at the heart of NGC 253, one of the nearest starburst galaxies to the Milky Way.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Starburst galaxies transmute gas into new stars at a dizzying pace - up to 1,000 times faster than typical spiral galaxies like the Milky Way.<br /><br />"All stars form in dense clouds of dust and gas. Scientists, however, struggled to see exactly what was going on inside starburst galaxies that distinguished them from other star-forming region," said Adam Leroy from the Ohio State University in Columbus.<br /><br />They used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile that offers the power to resolve individual star-forming structures even in distant systems.<br />Leroy and his colleagues mapped the distributions and motions of multiple molecules in clouds at the core of NGC 253 - also known as the "Sculptor Galaxy".<br /><br />Sculptor, a disk-shape galaxy currently undergoing intense starburst, is located approximately 11.5 million light-years from Earth.<br /><br />ALMA's exceptional resolution allowed the researchers to first identify 10 distinct stellar nurseries inside the heart of "Sculptor".<br /><br />The team mapped the distribution of about 40 millimetre-wavelength "signatures" from different molecules inside the centre of the galaxy.<br /><br />By comparing the concentration, distribution and motion of these molecules, the researchers were able to peel apart the star-forming clouds in Sculptor, revealing that they are much more massive, 10 times denser and far more turbulent than similar clouds in normal spiral galaxies.<br /><br />"These differences have wide-ranging implications for how galaxies grow and evolve," said Leroy who was formerly with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>