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IMAGE: This composite combines radio (orange) and infrared images of the W49A molecular cloud, where young stars are forming. view more
Credit: CREDIT: DePree, et al.; Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF; Spitzer/NASA.
This overlay shows radio (orange) and infrared images of a giant molecular cloud called W49A, where new stars are being formed. A team of astronomers led by Chris DePree of Agnes Scott College used the National Science Foundation s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to make new, high-resolution radio images of this cluster of still-forming, massive stars. W49A, 36,000 light-years from Earth, has been studied for many decades, and the new radio images revealed some tantalizing changes that have occurred since an earlier set of VLA observations in 1994 and 1995.