An improved model for star formation

Star formation, once thought to consist essentially of just the simple coalescence of material by gravity, actually occurs in a complex series of stages. As the gas and dust in giant molecular clouds come together into stars, ...

Water could have been abundant in the first billion years

How soon after the Big Bang could water have existed? Not right away, because water molecules contain oxygen and oxygen had to be formed in the first stars. Then that oxygen had to disperse and unite with hydrogen in significant ...

Comet probe Rosetta detects the 'most wanted molecule'

ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has made the first measurement of molecular nitrogen at a comet, providing clues about the temperature environment in which Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko formed.

Effects of accretion disks around newborn stars

Stars are born in dense, cool clouds of molecular gas and dust. When the local density is high enough, the matter can gravitationally collapse to form a new star, a so-called young stellar object (YSO). In its early phases, ...

The answer is blowing in the intergalactic wind

Astronomers from the University of Toronto and the University of Arizona have provided the first direct evidence that an intergalactic "wind" is stripping galaxies of star-forming gas as they fall into clusters of galaxies. ...

US and Mexican astronomers develop new model of star formation

(Phys.org) —Astronomers working to estimate the rate of star formation inside murky distant galaxies, those shrouded in dust clouds that make it very difficult to study them, have published data from a brand new instrument, ...

Black hole fireworks in nearby galaxy

(Phys.org) —Celebrants this Fourth of July will enjoy the dazzling lights and booming shock waves from the explosions of fireworks. A similarly styled event is taking place in the galaxy Messier 106, as seen by NASA's Spitzer ...

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