One more clue to validate the models of formation of giant stars was obtained with a study of the Cloud of the Dragon, a region of gas and dust of star formation. According to research, individual clouds collapse directly into a single star, contradicting theoretical models that propose other mechanisms.
Massive stars are relatively difficult to find because they are not very numerous in the Milky Way. In addition to being short-lived and exploding into supernovae very early, it’s not easy to find stars of this type in the early stages of formation. Therefore, understanding how they are born is a bit challenging.
Observations of the Dragon Cloud — rich in molecular hydrogen and the dust where stars form — could help change that picture. Using the ALMA telescope, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert, a team of astronomers scoured the region to study the dust.
Several regions of active star formation were found, but a dense and strange cluster caught the researchers’ attention because there were no newborn stars there. Looking further, they found that it was made up of two separate regions.
Although there was no star formation aoli, astronomers noticed that these small regions were collapsing to soon form stars. One of the clouds has more than 30 solar masses of material and the other just two solar masses.
If each of them gives rise to a star, it will be evident that massive stars are born from the direct collapse of a single cloud, contrary to models that propose the division of clouds into smaller clusters. That doesn’t seem to be the case for the two regions in Dragon Cloud, as they show no signs of fragmentation.
Thus, the direct collapse proposal, called the core accretion model, gains important observational support. The implication of this is that, if the new study is correct, massive stars are already born with massive masses — dozens of times greater than that of the Sun.
To confirm the findings, the team intends to observe the region further, and other researchers will be able to do the same to add more data to the debate. The study has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics and it was revealed in the repository arXiv.
Source: arXiv.orgvia: Universe Today
