A Swift Look at Starbirth in M33

Star formation is a hot topic, in more ways than one. When you look at an ultraviolet (UV) view of starbirth, you can see why. Hot young stars light up their birth clouds in ultraviolet light. In turn, the clouds radiate UV, a starbirth nebula’s equivalent of a baby monitor in a nursery. So, if you want to see where the hot action of star birth is taking place in a galaxy, look at it with a special UV-sensitive instrument. The star nurseries just stand out like beacons.

That’s basically what the Swift satellite did. It’s a multi-wavelength orbiting observatory, tuned to gamma-ray, x-ray, and UV/optical wavelengths of light. Between December 23, 2007 and January 4, 2008, Swift took a look at the galaxy M33 in the constellation Triangulum. The image mosaic it returned pinpoints the UV tracers of starbirth in exquisitely high resolution. It shows a galaxy ablaze with starbirth regions more active than the Milky Way or Andromeda galaxies.

Image credit: NASA/Swift Science Team/Stefan Immler. This image was created by combining 39 different frames taken during 11 hours of exposures. The bright areas are starbirth regions.