star formation Archives - Page 2 of 8

February 5, 2021February 5, 2021

Astronomers Can Predict When a Galaxy’s Star Formation Ends Based on the Shape and Size of its Disk

A galaxy’s main business is star formation. And when they’re young, like youth everywhere, they keep themselves busy with it. But galaxies age, evolve, and experience a slow-down in their rate of star formation. Eventually, galaxies cease forming new stars altogether, and astronomers call that quenching. They’ve been studying quenching for decades, yet much about it remains a mystery.

A new study based on the IllustrisTNG simulations has found a link between a galaxy’s quenching and its stellar size.

February 1, 2021February 1, 2021

Galaxy Mergers can Boost Star Formation, and it can Also Shut it Down

Galaxy mergers are beautiful sights, but ultimately deadly. In the midst of the collision, the combined galaxy will shine brighter than it ever has before. But that glory comes with a price: all those new stars use up all the available fuel, and star formation grinds to a halt.

January 19, 2021January 19, 2021

This is a Simulation of the Interstellar Medium Flowing Like Smoke Throughout the Milky Way

How do stars form?

We know they form from massive structures called molecular clouds, which themselves form from the Interstellar Medium (ISM). But how and why do certain types of stars form? Why, in some situations, does a star like our Sun form, versus a red dwarf or a blue giant?

That’s one of the central questions in astronomy. It’s also a very complex one.

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021

This is the Fireworks Galaxy. It’s had ten Supernovae in the Last Century Alone

Say hello to NGC 6946, otherwise known as the Fireworks Galaxy. This little galaxy is the most prolific producer of supernovae in the known universe, popping off those incredible explosions roughly once a decade. It’s secret? An incredibly high rate of star formation.

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020

Massive stars get kicked out of clusters

The largest stars in the universe tend to be loners, and new research points to the reason why. Although massive stars are born in clusters of many smaller brethren, they quickly get kicked out, forced to spend their lives alone.

August 12, 2020August 9, 2020

Seeing baby stars at every stage of their formation

Stars form from the collapse of dense clouds of gas and dust, which makes it very hard for astronomers to watch the process unfold. Recently the ALMA telescope has revealed a treasure trove of embryonic stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, illuminating how baby stars are born.

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020

The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud. Normally this Looks Like a Dark Blob in the Sky. But in Infrared, it Looks Like This.

The Corona Australis is a constellation in the southern hemisphere. It’s name literally means “southern crown.” One of its features is the Corona Australis molecular cloud, home to a star-forming region containing young stars and proto-stars. It’s one of the closest star-forming regions to us, only about 430 light years away.

The ESA has given us a new composite image of the cloud with data from the Herschel Space Observatory and the Planck Space Observatory.

June 5, 2020June 5, 2020

Hubble Looked as Far Back in Time as it Could, and Still Couldn’t See the First Generation of Stars in the Universe

Astronomers don’t know exactly when the first stars formed in the Universe because they haven’t been observed yet. And now, new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest the first stars and galaxies may have formed even earlier than previously estimated.

Why? We *still* haven’t seen them, even with the best telescope we’ve got, pushed to its limits.

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020

An Upcoming Impact With the Magellanic Clouds is Already Causing Star Formation in the Milky Way

For some time, astronomers have known that collisions or mergers between galaxies are an integral part of cosmic evolution. In addition to causing galaxies to grow, these mergers also trigger new rounds of star formation as fresh gas and dust are injected into the galaxy. In the future, astronomers estimate that the Milky Way Galaxy will merge with the Andromeda Galaxy, as well as the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds in the meantime.

According to new results obtained by researchers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in New York city, the results of our eventual merger with the Magellanic Clouds is already being felt. According to results presented at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week, stars forming in the outskirts of our galaxy could be the result of these dwarf galaxies merging with our own.

January 6, 2020January 6, 2020

This is the Core of the Milky Way, Seen in Infrared, Revealing Features Normally Hidden by Gas and Dust

The world’s largest airborne telescope, SOFIA, has peered into the core of the Milky Way and captured a crisp image of the region. With its ability to see in the infrared, SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) is able to observe the center of the Milky Way, a region dominated by dense clouds of gas and dust that block visible light. Those dense clouds are the stuff that stars are born from, and this latest image is part of the effort to understand how massive stars form.