11/22/2023 0 Comments Example of a main sequence star![]() The specific way the YSO behaves depends on how much mass it gathers. New planets form out of the remains of the circumstellar disk. These processes help determine the mass of the eventual star, and as such dictate much of the rest of the star’s life.ĭuring the pre-main-sequence (PMS) phase, the YSO contracts and heats up. The protostar’s gravity gathers mass into a spinning circumstellar disk, and some of the matter is funneled into powerful jets shooting away from the YSO. Protostars are completely hidden in visible light, so all the information we have about them comes from infrared, submillimeter, and X-ray observations. Before fusion begins, an object that will become a star is known as a young stellar object (YSO), and it passes through two major stages of development.ĭuring the protostar phase, the YSO is still gathering mass onto itself in the form of gas and dust. Even before they become stars, though, much of their future life and structure is determined by the way they form.Ī star is defined by nuclear fusion in its core. SMA Unveils How Small Cosmic Seeds Grow Into Big StarsĪll stars begin their lives in dense interstellar clouds of gas and dust. Using the CfA’s Submillimeter Array (SMA) and other telescopes capable of seeing through the gas and dust around newborn stars, astronomers can track the evolution from protostar to star. The mass of a star dictates its life cycle, and that mass is set during its growth period before it’s even a star. Studying YSOs and their environments, as a way to determine how stars have the masses they do. Using NASA’s Kepler observatory and other instruments, astronomers have tracked starspots to measure the spinning of stars in a single cluster. Researchers want to know exactly how that rate changes, and how it reflects the aging of the star itself. Stars begin their lives spinning fast, and slow down gradually over time. Measuring the ages of stars to understand how they change over the course of their lives. In other instances, X-ray light from a binary system with a black hole or neutron star illuminates a star-forming region, which is opaque to visible light, but transparent to X-rays. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, astronomers have learned that the violent final stages of a star’s life can spur the creation of new stars, by compressing interstellar gas until it collapses under its own gravity to make protostars. Identifying stars at all stages of life - including places where both dying and newborn stars coexist. Using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other observatories, astronomers can identify the composition of the “winds” from aging stars. Studying them reveals how they enrich interstellar space with new atoms, and how pulsation relates to physical processes deep in the star’s interior. These giant stars pulsate and shed huge amounts of matter. Observing stars in the final stages of their lives. Young Sun-like Star Shows a Magnetic Field Was Critical for Life on the Early Earth Astronomers observe newly born Sun-like stars to determine what ours may have been like, and the effect that had on planet formation. We can only observe our Sun at this particular time of its life, but astronomers can see its past and future by looking at similar stars earlier or later in their cycle. Studying stars that are similar to the Sun at other stages in evolution. Using NASA’s Kepler observatory and other telescopes monitoring stars for exoplanet signals, researchers measure the fluctuations of light caused by starquakes. Much like earthquakes provide hints about Earth’s, these sound waves allow astronomers to measure what’s going on inside stars. These starquakes produce variations in the star’s light. Monitoring sound waves running through the interiors of Sun-like stars. Proxima Centauri Might Be More Sunlike Than We Thought That discovery was surprising, because researchers previously thought red dwarf stars like Proxima Centauri don’t have strong magnetic fluctuations. ![]() ![]() For example, astronomers recently discovered that Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, has starspots. Those changes are due to “ starspots” - dark spots created by magnetic variations in a star - and starquakes. While most stars appear too small to distinguish surface features, astronomers can infer variations in their interiors by how their light fluctuates. Studying fluctuations in light on nearby stars to determine their internal processes. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian researchers study stellar structure and evolution in many ways: ![]()
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