massive protostar tagged posts

Here on Earth, we pay quite a lot of attention to the sun. It’s visible to us, after all, and central to our lives. But it is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s also quite small compared to other stars—many are at least eight times more massive.

These massive stars influence the structure, shape and chemical content of a galaxy. And when they have exhausted their hydrogen gas fuel and die, they do so in an explosive event called a supernova. This explosion is sometimes so strong that it triggers the formation of new stars out of materials in the dead star’s surroundings.

But there’s an important gap in our knowledge: as...

Inside the Cats’s Paw Nebula as seen in an infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (left), ALMA discovered that an infant star is undergoing an intense growth spurt, shining nearly 100 brighter than before and reshaping its stellar nursery (right). Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), T. Hunter; C. Brogan, B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); GLIMPSE, NASA/JPL-Caltech

A massive protostar, deeply nestled in its dust-filled stellar nursery, recently roared to life, shining nearly 100 times brighter than before. This outburst, apparently triggered by an avalanche of star-forming gas crashing onto the surface of the star, supports the theory that young stars can undergo intense growth spurts that reshape their surroundings...