Hot and brilliant O stars in star-forming regions

These spectacular panoramic views show parts of the Carina Nebula (left), the Eagle Nebula (centre) and IC 2944 (right). These are all regions of star formation that contain many hot young stars including several bright stars of spectral type O. The O stars in these star-forming regions that were included in a new survey using ESO’s Very Large Telescope are marked with circles. Many of these stars were found to be close pairs and such binaries often transfer mass from one star to the other.

The pictures were created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.