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- In cosmic phenomena, we see echoes of our distant past. Massive clouds of gas and dust condense into centralized protostars, that in turn emit powerful solar wind and bursts of radiation. A newborn star emerges from its molecular cloud nursery. Material left over from the star’s formation collapses into protoplanets.
www.cfa.harvard.edu/big-questions/how-do-stars-and-planets-form-and-evolve
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Aug 21, 2019 · Scientists will measure the older stars—stars that live for billions of years, like the Sun. They’ll determine where those stars reside within a galaxy, which will inform them about the past history of star formation. Then they can compare that data to where the new stars are forming.
Within a vast molecular cloud, a cradle for new stars, the material coalesced under gravity’s inexorable pull, giving birth to our solar system‘s central star. This process marked the beginning of the Sun’s life, setting the stage for its current status as a stable main-sequence star, providing the necessary warmth and light for life on ...
Aug 2, 2024 · In lower mass stars, including our Sun, once the hydrogen in the core is exhausted, the star expands into what astronomers call a red giant. The red giant is hundreds of times its original size and more unstable.
Dec 15, 2022 · Webb’s observations uncovered a gallery of objects ranging from small fountains to burbling behemoths that extend light-years from the forming stars. Many of these protostars are poised to become low mass stars, like our Sun.
- Background
- Stellar Birth
- Going Out in A Blaze of Glory
Stars are the building blocks of the universe. They are assembled into giant star clusters, like towns. In turn, the towns and cities are assembled into continents – the galaxies. Stars are the nuclear fusion-driven furnaces for forging the heavier elements, which in turn become the building blocks for life as we know it. Potential habitats for lif...
Understanding the nature of stars across our galaxyputs our Sun in context with stellar formation, spectral classes, and evolution. It wasn’t until the first half of the 20th century that astrophysicists understood the nuclear energy processes that power the Sun, and understood the nucleosynthesis of the heaver elements as a result of stellar evolu...
Hubble revealed unprecedented details of the death of Sun-like stars. Ground-based images suggested that many of these objects, called planetary nebulas had simple, spherical shapes. Hubble showed, however, that their shapes are more complex. Some look like pinwheels, others like butterflies, and still others like hourglasses. The images yield insi...
Apr 7, 2024 · Hydrogen fusion ignited the sun’s core, causing the star to emit light and heat. Around the sun, the leftovers — about 0.5 to one per cent of the mass of the sun — created a protoplanetary...
The observations reveal the violent process of star birth that produces intense ultraviolet radiation and shock fronts. The radiation clears out cavities in stellar nursery clouds and erodes material from giant gas pillars that are incubators for fledgling stars.
