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An interstellar cloud is generally an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. But differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interstellar medium , the matter and radiation that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy.
The visible-light (left) and infrared (right) views of the Trifid Nebula—a giant star-forming cloud of gas and dust located 5,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius Stars are thought to form inside giant clouds of cold molecular hydrogen — giant molecular clouds roughly 300,000 times the mass of the Sun ( M ☉ ) and 20 ...
Stars form by gravitational collapse of interstellar gas clouds. As the collapse increases the density, radiative energy loss decreases due to increased opacity. This raises the temperature of the cloud which prevents further collapse, and a hydrostatic equilibrium is established. Gas continues to fall towards the core in a rotating disk.
The interstellar medium (ISM) is the matter and radiation that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstellar space and blends smoothly into the surrounding intergalactic space.
The W51 nebula in Aquila - one of the largest star factories in the Milky Way (August 25, 2020). Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space, sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "star-forming regions", collapse and form stars. [1]
In the low-density (H atoms per ) diffuse interstellar medium, dust particles up to micron size couple with gas clouds within a frictional scale of less than 1 pc. Within the denser, colder interstellar medium found in molecular clouds ( n H = 10 8 − 10 12 m − 3 {\displaystyle {10^{8}-10^{12}m^{-3}}} ), the growth of grains occurs through ...
Examples of the former case are giant molecular clouds, the coldest, densest phase of interstellar gas, which can form by the cooling and condensation of more diffuse gas. Examples of the latter case are planetary nebulae formed from material shed by a star in late stages of its stellar evolution .
Molecular clouds typically have interstellar medium densities of 10 to 30 cm-3, and constitute approximately 50% of the total interstellar gas in a galaxy. [11] Most of the gas is found in a molecular state. The visual boundaries of a molecular cloud is not where the cloud effectively ends, but where molecular gas changes to atomic gas in a ...