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SPACE: A Star is Born

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A Star is Born - Live Science

Astrophysicists have developed the first high-resolution 3D model of a gas cloud coalescing to form a star — and it’s mind-blowing. The “Starforge” model (which stands for “star formation in gaseous environments”) allows users to fly through a colorful cloud of gas as it pools into stars all around them. Researchers hope that the visually stunning simulation will help them to explore the many unsolved mysteries of star formation, such as: Why is the process so slow and inefficient? What determines a star’s mass? And why do stars tend to cluster together? The computational framework is able to simulate gas … Read more

SPACE: Star Births Its Own Twin – Live Science

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a star is born

A close-up look at the birth of a star has revealed a surprise: Not one new stellar body, but two. In 2017, scientists using a new array of radio telescopes in the Chilean desert were observing a massive young star named MM 1a in an active star-forming region of the galaxy more than 10,000 light-years away. As they analyzed the data, they realized that MM 1a was accompanied by a second, fainter object, which they dubbed MM 1b. This, they found, was the first star’s smaller sibling, formed from the spray of dust and gases it holds in its gravitational … Read more

SPACE: Scientists Search for Our Mother Sun

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mother sun

Image Credit: NAOJ Billions of years ago, a huge star blasted open and spewed its guts into space. At that energetic moment, the so-called core-collapse supernova formed a debris cloud of brand-new atoms, forged in the heat of its blast. Time passed. The cloud contracted, attracted to itself by its own gravity. A star formed — our sun — surrounded by chunks of rock and gas that formed our planets and other orbiting bodies. Much later, we came along. That’s the basic story of our solar system’s birth. And, mostly from watching other supernovas and other star births out in … Read more