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As a branch of astronomy, star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium (ISM) and giant molecular clouds (GMC) as precursors to the star formation process, and the study of protostars and young stellar objects as its immediate products. It is closely related to planet formation, another branch of astronomy.
Taurus Molecular Cloud. Located about 430 light-years from us, this vast complex of interstellar clouds is where a large amount of stars are being born, and is the closest large region of star formation. Star formation involves the collapse of the densest part of the molecular cloud, fragmenting the collapsed region in smaller clumps.
As stars are born within a GMC, the most massive will reach temperatures hot enough to ionise the surrounding gas. [5] Soon after the formation of an ionising radiation field, energetic photons create an ionisation front, which sweeps through the surrounding gas at supersonic speeds. At greater and greater distances from the ionising star, the ...
A stellar evolutionary model is a mathematical model that can be used to compute the evolutionary phases of a star from its formation until it becomes a remnant. The mass and chemical composition of the star are used as the inputs, and the luminosity and surface temperature are the only constraints.
Elephant trunks resemble massive pillars or columns of gas and dust, but they come in various shapes, lengths, and colors. Astronomers study elephant trunks because of their unique formation process and use 2-D and 3-D simulations to try to understand how this phenomenon occurs.
The giant molecular cloud Orion A is the most active star-forming region in the local neighbourhood of the Sun. In the last few million years about 3000 young stellar objects were formed in this region, including about 190 protostars and about 2600 pre-main sequence stars. [6]
R136a1 clearly exceeds all these limits, leading to development of new single star accretion models potentially removing the upper limit, [32] and the potential for massive star formation by stellar mergers. [33] [34] As a single star formed from accretion, the properties of such a massive star are still uncertain.
SS – (celestial object) Symbiotic Star, a type of binary star system containing a red giant and a hot dwarf star that generate a cone-shaped nebula; sSFR – (astrophyics terminology) specific star formation rate; SSI – (instrumentation) Solid-State Imager, an instrument on the Galileo spacecraft; SSI – (organization) Space Studies Institute