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PICTURE: GAS MOVING TO US BECOMES BLUE AND GAS MOVING FROM US IS DISPLAYED IN RED. View More CREDIT: ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO), LU ET AL.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers found a number of star eggs with baby stars in the center of the Milky Way. Previous studies had shown that the environment there was too harsh for stars to form. These results show that star formation is more resilient than researchers believe.
Stars form in star eggs, cosmic clouds of gas and dust that collapse due to gravity. If something interferes with the contraction caused by gravity, star formation is suppressed. There are many potential sources of interference near the Galactic Center. Strong turbulence can stir up the clouds and prevent them from contracting, or strong magnetic fields can help the gas against the collapse of self-gravity. Previous observations showed that star formation near the Galactic Center is much less efficient.
To investigate the secrets of suppressed star formation, a team led by Xing Lu, an astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, used ALMA to observe regions near the Galactic Center that contain abundant gas but no known star formation. Surprisingly, the team discovered more than 800 dense cores made of gas and dust.
“The discovery raises the question of whether or not they are actually ‘star eggs’.” explains Lu. To answer this question, the team again looked with ALMA for energetic gas outflows that indicate the formation of stars in star eggs. Thanks to the high sensitivity and the high spatial resolution of ALMA, 43 small and weak runoffs could be detected in the clouds. Lu comments: “Our observations show that baby stars are still forming in the severely disturbed areas around the Galactic Center.”
The research team is now analyzing the higher-resolution observational data from ALMA to better understand the processes that drive gas outflow and star formation near the Galactic Center.
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From EurekAlert!
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