Related topics: star formation

Cold molecular clouds as cosmic ray detectors

The ionization of the neutral gas in an interstellar molecular cloud plays a key role in the cloud's evolution, helping to regulate the heating and cooling processes, the chemistry and molecule formation, and coupling the ...

Magnetized gas flows feed a young star cluster

Observations of magnetic fields in interstellar clouds made of gas and dust indicate that these clouds are strongly magnetized, and that magnetic fields influence the formation of stars within them. A key observation is that ...

Large simulation finds new origin of supermassive black holes

Computer simulations conducted by astrophysicists at Tohoku University in Japan, have revealed a new theory for the origin of supermassive black holes. In this theory, the precursors of supermassive black holes grow by swallowing ...

Blowtorch jets from a black hole drive starbirth

Supermassive black holes, weighing millions or even billions of times our Sun's mass, are still only a tiny fraction of the mass of the galaxies they inhabit. But in some cases, the central black hole is the tail wagging ...

Space dragons: Researchers observe energy consumption in quasars

Quasars are the universe's brightest beacons; shining with magnitudes more luminosity than entire galaxies and the stars they contain. In the center of this light, at the heart of a quasar, researchers think, is an all-consuming ...

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 ...

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