A Far Away Star Cluster

High-mass stars are important because they are responsible for much of the energy pumped into a galaxy over its lifetime. Unfortunately, these stars aren’t understood very well because they are usually found relatively far away in places where lots of gas and dust impede our view. This star cluster (NGC 281) however, is an exception since it is far enough away from the plane of our galaxy that not a lot of dust and gas obscure its view. The high-mass stars have powerful winds flowing from their surfaces and intense radiation that heats surrounding gas, boiling it away into interstellar space. This process results in the formation of the large columns of gas and dust seen on the left side of the image. These structures likely contain newly forming stars. The eventual deaths of massive stars as supernovas will also seed the galaxy with material and energy. Here we see NGC 281 in X-rays from Chandra and infrared data from Spitzer.