Image: Orion A in infrared

Stars form within giant clouds of gas and dust that pervade galaxies like our own Milky Way. This image depicts one such cloud, known as Orion A, as seen by ESA's Herschel and Planck space observatories.

Technique pulls interstellar magnetic fields within easy reach

A new, more accessible and much cheaper approach to surveying the topology and strength of interstellar magnetic fields—which weave through space in our galaxy and beyond, representing one of the most potent forces in nature—has ...

Galaxies as 'cosmic cauldrons'

Star formation within interstellar clouds of gas and dust, so-called molecular clouds, proceeds very rapidly yet highly inefficiently. Most of the gas is dispersed by stellar radiation, revealing galaxies to be highly dynamic ...

How do stellar binaries form?

Most stars with the mass of the sun or larger have one or more companion stars, but when and how these multiple stars form is one of the controversial central problems of astronomy. Gravity contracts the natal gas and dust ...

Halfway mark for NOEMA construction

The completion of NOEMA phase 1, the first phase of the NOEMA project will be officially celebrated this Wednesday, September 19th. IRAM and its partner institutes have completed the first, decisive step towards one of the ...

Exploring the dusty prehistory of the solar system

The solar system as we know it formed about 4.6 billion years ago as fields of interstellar dust orbiting the sun aggregated into planets and smaller objects. Presolar dust particles no longer exist in the inner solar system, ...

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