Webb und Hubble stellen fest, dass massereiche Sternhaufen schneller entstehen

TLDR:

* Webb and Hubble studied nearly 9,000 star clusters across four nearby galaxies as part of the FEAST (Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers) program. The most massive clusters fully cleared their natal gas clouds in around 5 million years, while less massive clusters took 7 to 8 million years, a huge difference on a galactic scale.
* That early clearing drives stellar feedback, a process by which radiation and supernova explosions disperse gas across the galaxy. „Simulations of star formation and stellar feedback have struggled to reproduce how star clusters form and emerge from their natal clouds. These results give us important new constraints on that process,“ said lead author Angela Adamo of Stockholm University.
* This research also challenges how planets form. The faster gas clears, the sooner protoplanetary discs are exposed to harsh ultraviolet radiation from neighboring stars, reducing their opportunity to grow dust and create planets. This means where a massive star cluster forms and how fast it emerges has direct consequences reaching all the way down to whether planets can form nearby. „Using Webb, we can look into the cradles of star clusters and connect planet formation to the cycle of star formation and stellar feedback,“ said lead author Alex Pedrini, also of Stockholm University.

[ESA Press Release](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_Hubble_find_massive_star_clusters_emerge_faster)
[Published Paper in Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02857-y)
[Official Release & Image Links](https://esawebb.org/news/weic2608/)
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