NAOJ: Stellar Egg Hunt with ALMA

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NAOJ: Stellar Egg Hunt with ALMA

Post by bystander » Fri Aug 07, 2020 4:12 pm

Stellar Egg Hunt with ALMA — Tracing
Evolution from Embryo to Baby Star

ALMA | National Astronomical Observatory of Japan | 2020 Aug 07
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) took a census of stellar eggs in the constellation Taurus and revealed their evolution state. This census helps researchers understand how and when a stellar embryo transforms to a baby star deep inside a gaseous egg. In addition, the team found a bipolar outflow, a pair of gas streams, that could be telltale evidence of a truly newborn star.

Stars are formed by gravitational contraction of gaseous clouds. The densest parts of the clouds, called molecular cloud cores, are the very sites of star formation and mainly located along the Milky Way. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the active star-forming regions and many telescopes have been pointed at the cloud. Previous observations show that some cores are actually stellar eggs before the birth of stars, but others already have infant stars inside.

A research team led by Kazuki Tokuda ... utilized the power of ALMA to investigate the inner structure of the stellar eggs. They observed 32 starless cores and nine cores with baby protostars. They detected radio waves from all of the nine cores with stars, but only 12 out of 32 starless cores showed a signal. The team concluded that these 12 eggs have developed internal structures, which shows they are more evolved than the 20 quiet cores. ...

FRagmentation and Evolution of Dense Cores Judged by ALMA (FREJA). I. Overview:
Inner ~1000 au Structures of Prestellar/Protostellar Cores in Taurus
~ Kazuki Tokuda et al A Low-Velocity Bipolar Outflow from a Deeply Embedded Object
in Taurus Revealed by the Atacama Compact Array
~ Kakeru Fujishiro et al
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