Star clusters are formed by the condensation of molecular clouds, masses of cold, dense gas that are found in every galaxy. The physical properties of these clouds in our own galaxy and nearby galaxies have been known for ...
Astronomy
Sep 16, 2019
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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 ...
Astronomy
May 23, 2019
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Stars form from the gas and dust in molecular clouds via a series of complex processes that are currently only partly understood, and the evolution of these clouds drives the evolution of the stellar populations in the universe. ...
Astronomy
Apr 01, 2019
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Scientists from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research in Japan, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the University of Virginia in the USA and collaborators have made observations of a molecular cloud that ...
Astronomy
Mar 18, 2019
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The sun, like all stars, was born in a giant cold cloud of molecular gas and dust. It may have had dozens or even hundreds of stellar siblings – a star cluster – but these early companions are now scattered throughout ...
Astronomy
Nov 07, 2018
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Star formation is one of the most important research fields in astrophysics. This process, in which gravitational instabilities cause the collapse of gas to form more compact structures and finally stars, encompasses a broad ...
Astronomy
Oct 25, 2018
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This image from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows the area surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that lurks at the centre of the Milky Way—highlighted here with a small circle. ...
Astronomy
Oct 23, 2018
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An odd-shaped formation of gas and dust at the centre of the Milky Way, captured by the far-infrared cameras on board ESA's Herschel space observatory. The nearly continuous strip of dense and cold clumps of material forms ...
Astronomy
Sep 24, 2018
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Disc galaxies like our own Milky Way, characterized by a flattened disc of stars and gas (often with a central bulge of material as well) have a wide range of masses, spatial extents, and stellar content. Nonetheless all ...
Astronomy
Jul 23, 2018
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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, ...
