Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy | 2015 Jan 16
Magnetic fields in massive dark clouds are strong enough to support the regions against collapse due to their own gravity. A study lead by researchers at the Max–Planck–Institut für Radioastronomie in Bonn, Germany, shows for the first time that high magnetization sets the stage for the formation of stars much more massive than the sun. This is demonstrated in observations of polarized dust emission from two of the most massive clouds in our Milky Way, the “Brick” and “Snake”. The results are published in this week’s issue of the Astrophysical Journal.[attachment=0]Brick-pol_en-vers2[1].jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]Snake-pol_en[1].jpg[/attachment]
Stars much more massive than the Sun (with 8 solar masses or more) live wild and die young. They spew out powerful stellar winds and sometimes explode violently to end up as supernovae. Even their birth is spectacular: massive stars form out of very dense and massive gaseous cores that are deeply embedded within dark clouds of gas and dust. In fact, the high mass of these cores has puzzled researchers for many years: the cores should quickly collapse due to their own gravity and destroy themselves before telescopes on Earth can detect them. ...
It has long been suspected that magnetic fields help to support clouds against collapse. But magnetic fields are elusive: it is difficult to tease the weak signal from magnetic fields from the noise. Every region has to be observed over several nights to finally achieve a significant detection. The current study therefore only targets two regions. The “Brick” is an unusually dense cloud that is as opaque as its namesake. It resides just a few dozen light years away from the Galactic Center Black Hole in a distance of about 26,000 light years. The nickname of the “Snake” is inspired by its serpent–like shape. This cloud is about 12,000 light years away from Earth. The team used archival data from two telescopes on top of Mauna Kea (Hawaii, USA) to conduct this research, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. ...
Magnetic Fields in High-Mass Infrared Dark Clouds - Thushara Pillai et al
- Astrophysical Journal 799(1) 74 (2015 Jan 20) DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/799/1/74
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1410.7390 > 27 Oct 2014 (v1), 29 Oct 2014 (v2)
