How Just Three Stars Light Up a Stellar Nursery

Today I'm going to toss a little bit of math your way. If you're an arithmophobe, never fear: It's mostly just me throwing around some gee-whiz numbers, and I'll help you swallow this medicine with the sweet, sweet eye candy above. That image is from Robert Gendler, Roberto Colombari, and Martin Pugh, and it shows the young star cluster called NGC 6193 embedded in a vast cloud of gas and dust called NGC 6188. Both are very roughly 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Ara. The image com...