A growing stellar system directly fed by the mother cloud

For the first time, astronomers have observed a conveyor belt from the outskirts of a star-forming dense cloud directly depositing material near a pair of young forming stars. Scientists at the German Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the French Institut de Radioastonomie Millimétrique (IRAM) found that gas motions in the conveyor belt, dubbed a “streamer,” mainly obey the…

Powerful X-ray flare detected from the protostar HOPS 383

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, astronomers have conducted X-ray observations and near-infrared imaging of a protostar named HOPS 383. The monitoring campaign detected a powerful X-ray flare from the source, which could help astronomers to better understand the earliest stages of star formation. The finding is detailed in a paper accepted for publication in…

Massive protostar keeps growing despite ionization heating by ultraviolet light

A gigantic embryonic star is still getting bigger, even though it propels vast plumes of hot gas away from itself, RIKEN astronomers have found. The discovery could help to solve an enduring mystery about how massive stars grow so large. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-02-massive-protostar-ionization-ultraviolet.html…