What highlights the active nurseries composing the spiral arms visually?
Answer
The blue, brilliant light of the very massive stars that have just been born there
The visual manifestation of active star formation in the spiral arms comes from the population of massive, hot, blue stars. These stars are created in abundance when molecular clouds collapse within the arms. Because they burn through their fuel extremely quickly, completing their life cycle in mere millions of years, they do not migrate far from their birth sites before expiring. Their incredibly luminous and brilliant blue light serves as a direct beacon, tracing and highlighting the exact nurseries where they sprang into existence just moments earlier in cosmic terms.
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