#molecular clouds

[quiltofstars]

The Chamaeleon dark clouds // Chris Laurel

[zespaceblog]

Clouds of Creation

Dense molecular clouds provide the ideal place for gravity to work it's creative duty. Cold clouds of hydrogen and other elements behave in a sticky way, collecting together in sufficient clumps that cause space/time to bend, and draw in more and more matter.

Eventually that matter is put under such huge pressure from gravity and mass, that it begins to fuse, creating a completely opposite force which pushes outwards, and a protostar and eventual star is born.

It's no surprise that the clouds in the above image of the Carina Nebula, appear to glow, as they are full of the acts of creation, the stars which will form clusters.

Our own Sun started life in a very similar place, escaping it's cluster at some point, and charting it's own path around the Milky Way.

Another area of the Carina nebula may look like it's telling you where to go sit, but clouds have always been a place our brains enjoy to conjure up more Earthly images for our brains to see.

Some areas of dust and gas stretch for hundreds of light years, and our Milky Way isn't alone at all in this, what we see happening here, is also happening in many galaxies. Take a look at M33, the Triangulum galaxy, and spot a monster sized molecular cloud to the upper right.

This is so prominent, it actually has it's own NGC catalogue entry, NGC 604.

[celestialobjects]

— Herbig–Haro object 24 in infrared light as observed by the Hubble telescope ( i.)

[thinkingimages]

Orion Molecular Cloud Complex

[zespaceblog]

NGC 1333

This stellar nursery in the constellation of Perseus is just 967 light years from Earth, and is thought to contain hundreds of stars, most hidden from view with optical telescopes because of the thick dust and gas. Some Herbig-Haro objects can be seen glowing like fire, as supercharged jets of plasma shoot from the poles of the forming star.

While the backdrop, a reflective nebula, glows blue, the main colour of the bright new hot stars being formed, all less than 1 million years old.

It is in such a molecular cloud our star would have first formed 4.6 billion years ago.

[netmassimo]

An article published in 'The Astrophysical Journal' reports a study of 17 molecular clouds in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky W

An article published in "The Astrophysical Journal" reports a study of 17 molecular clouds in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way's satellite dwarf galaxies. A team of researchers led by Kazuki Tokuda, a postdoctoral researcher at Kyushu University, Japan, examined high-resolution images captured using the ALMA radio telescope to obtain information on their characteristics. The examination showed that 40% of those clouds had a more diffused gas, with fluffy structures. The others were classic molecular clouds with a filamentary structure that are also found in the Milky Way. This difference was attributed to the scarcity of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a situation similar to that of the early universe.

[flawless-imperfections]

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society" describes the study of molecular clouds where new star clusters form. A team of researchers used the SOFIA airborne telescope exploiting its ability to detect infrareds coming from dark clouds where the first stages of star formation are hidden. The observations offered new evidence that star clusters form as a result of collisions between giant molecular clouds.