Where are Stars Born?

New stars are formed in clouds of gas and dust that are in outer space between the stars.

If you're picturing a dense fog cloud, think again. Typically in a dust cloud , you would have to search long and hard to find a single dust grain in a space the length of a football field on each side.

And then the dust grain is very small. About 4000 dust grains could fit across a sucker stick.

But dust clouds in space are incredibly large. A typical cloud contains about 8 million trillion trillion trillion trillion tiny dust particles.

The picture on the left shows a dust particle from outer space, which researchers have named Florianus. The dust particle is so small we could not see it with only our eyes. It was collected by a high-flying airplane . Dust grains like this become part of new stars.

Where are Stars Born?

New stars are formed in clouds of gas and dust that are in outer space between the stars.

If you're picturing a dense fog cloud, think again. Typically in a dust cloud , you would have to search long and hard to find a single dust grain in a space the length of a football field on each side.

And then the dust grain is very small. About 4000 dust grains could fit across a sucker stick.

But dust clouds in space are incredibly large. A typical cloud contains about 8 million trillion trillion trillion trillion tiny dust particles.

The picture on the left shows a dust particle from outer space, which researchers have named Florianus. The dust particle is so small we could not see it with only our eyes. It was collected by a high-flying airplane in our own atmosphere.

Dust grains like this become part of new stars.

Where are Stars Born?

New stars are formed in vast clouds of gas and dust that occupy the space between stars.

If you're picturing a dense fog cloud, think again. Typically in a cloud with 1 gas atom per cubic centimeter, you would have to search long and hard to find a single dust grain in a volume of space the length of a football field on each side (about 10's-100 meters). And then the dust grain is only about 1/1000 of a mm across. About 4000 dust grains could fit across a sucker stick.

Not very impressive until you add up all the dust grains in the cloud that can cover tens of light years in space. A cloud extending over 1 light year on a side contains about 8 million trillion trillion trillion trillion dust grains.

The interstellar dust grain on the left, which researchers have named Florianus, was collected by a high-flying airplane in our own atmosphere.

These dust grains absorb visible light so strongly that we cannot see into the dust cloud. Infrared light can penetrate through the cloud though, giving us a glimpse of the stars being born deep within its inner regions.