NASA: 'Growth Spurt' from a Newborn Protostar

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NASA: 'Growth Spurt' from a Newborn Protostar

Post by bystander » Tue Mar 24, 2015 4:11 am

NASA Satellites Catch a 'Growth Spurt' from a Newborn Protostar
NASA | GSFC | JPL-Caltech | Spitzer | 2015 Mar 23
Using data from orbiting observatories, including NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and from ground-based facilities, an international team of astronomers has discovered an outburst from a star thought to be in the earliest phase of its development. The eruption, scientists say, reveals a sudden accumulation of gas and dust by an exceptionally young star, or protostar, known as HOPS 383.

Stars form within collapsing fragments of cold gas clouds. As the cloud contracts under its own gravity, its central region becomes denser and hotter. By the end of this process, the collapsing fragment has transformed into a hot central protostar surrounded by a dusty disk roughly equal in mass, embedded in a dense envelope of gas and dust. Astronomers call this a "Class 0" protostar. ...

The Class 0 phase is short-lived, lasting roughly 150,000 years, and is considered the earliest developmental stage for stars like the sun.

A protostar has not yet developed the energy-generating capabilities of a sun-like star, which fuses hydrogen into helium in its core. Instead, a protostar shines from the heat energy released by its contraction and by the accumulation of material from the disk of gas and dust surrounding it. The disk may one day develop asteroids, comets and planets. ...

HOPS 383: An Outbursting Class 0 Protostar in Orion - Emily J. Safron et al
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