June 27, 2021

RCW 49 (Image NASA/JPL-Caltec/E.Churchwell (University of Wisconsin))

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study concerning a stellar nursery inside the RCW 49 nebula. A team of researchers coordinated by the University of Maryland used data obtained with the SOFIA flying telescope and combined them with others obtained with other instruments to obtain a 3D reconstruction of a gigantic structure of ionized hot plasma that is expanding around the open star cluster Westerlund 2. The main “suspect” behind that expansion is the star WR 20a.