NGC 1386 is a spiral galaxy located 53 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus.
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This image of NGC 1386 combines data from VST and ALMA. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / Prieto et al. / Fornax Deep Survey.
Dr. Almudena Prieto from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and colleagues observed the central region of NGC 1386 as part of the PARSEC project, a parsec-scale multiwavelength investigation of the centers of the nearest galaxies.
“Stars often form within stellar clusters — groups of thousands of stars that originate from massive clouds of molecular gas,” the astronoemrs said.
“The blue ring at the center of this galaxy is ripe with stellar clusters full of young stars.”
To look at this ring in more detail, Dr. Prieto and co-authors used data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The data show that all of these star clusters formed 4 million years ago, almost simultaneously.
“It is the first time that synchronized star formation has been observed in a galaxy that contains mostly old stars,” the researchers said.
They used the Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA) to reveal even more secrets in NGC 1386.
“Shown in the new image as a golden ring are a multitude of clouds of gas, ready to form a second batch of young stars,” the scientists said.
“For these to be born, though, we will still have to wait 5 million years.”
“Even if old, NGC 1386 keeps rejuvenating itself,” they added.
The findings were published in September 2024 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Almudena Prieto et al. 2024. The PARSEC view of star formation in galaxy centres: from protoclusters to star clusters in an early-type spiral. MNRAS 533 (1): 433-454; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae1822
