physics of star formation tagged posts

High-Resolution Simulations Explore the Physics of Star Formation

Rocking the magnetic cradle of stellar birth
The new simulations show a cross section of the star and its surrounding disk of gas. In the left image, where the young star is weakly magnetized, gas can be seen flowing freely from the surrounding disk of material to the surface of the protostar. In the right image, material flows along the magnetic field lines towards the star’s poles, in a much more defined flow. Credit: Astronomy & Astrophysics (2024). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451842

Stars are born in clouds of gas and dust, making it difficult to observe their early development. But researchers at Chalmers have now succeeded in simulating how a star with the mass of the sun absorbs material from the surrounding disk of material—a process called accretion.

The researchers simulated four stars with the same mass but with v...

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