The Birth of Stars

Birth of stars

Death of stars
What do we call the birthplace of stars?
Stellar Nursery: The Carina Nebula with the Hubble Telescope

What are we looking at?

Stellar Nursery: The Orion Nebula with the Hubble Space
Telescope

What are we looking at?

Where is the Orion Nebula?
Where is the Orion Nebula?
A slightly older nursery (middle school?): The Pleiades cluster

Age ~ 100 Myr. (Age of Orion Nebula ~1 Myr)

The Pleiades cluster is called “Subaru” in Japanese
and has importance in cultures all around the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_literature
Artist’s depiction of the Milky Way Galaxy

Credit:Lynette Cook
 Simulations of stellar nurseries show how
these complex structures form

Orion Nebula seen with the

Hubble Space Telescope
 What is the difference between an
“animation” and a “simulation”?

animation simulation
 What forces would a star-formation
simulation need to include?
 What forces would a star-formation
simulation need to include?

-Gravity
-Pressure
-Magnetic fields
How do you design a computer
simulation?
 How do you design a computer
simulation?

old positions Calculation of forces new positions

Let’s “zoom in” and think about a single
star forming out of a single small cloud
What force keeps a cloud from
collapsing?
Gas pressure pushes out, like in a balloon
What force might cause material in clouds to
collapse?

Gravity pulls material inwards

Clouds collapse to form stars when the force
of gravity is larger than the pressure force.

What type of cloud is more likely to collapse?

A.  A hot and small cloud

B.  A large and cold cloud

If a cloud is massive enough and cold enough,
it will begin to collapse.

 The cloud is spinning.
What happens as it collapses?
(Think of the water in a drain, or a figure skater)

gravity pulls inwards

 “Conservation of angular momentum”
(My definition: If spinning things get smaller, they
must spin faster)

What does “conservation” mean?

What does “momentum” mean?
What does “angular momentum” mean?

Let’s watch a video: angular_momentum.mp4

(00:24:00)
As a cloud collapses, it spins faster and faster
What happens to the cloud as it spins faster and
faster?

Physics major Louisa Barama shows off

her angular momentum!
What happens to the cloud as it spins faster and
faster?

Notice what’s happening to her skirt!

 The cloud spins faster and faster, until it can’t
support itself, and flattens out partly into a disk

Think of the cloud as a figure skater, and the

disk as a skirt.
Lucky for us, this is the perfect way to form a
solar system.

disk = future solar system

blob = future sun

The disks that form around young stars are
called “protoplanetary disks”

disk = future solar system

blob = future sun

The formation of planets occurs at the same

time as the formation of stars
Can we observe these disks?
Orion Nebula
Orion Nebula: Close-ups reveal spinning disks around baby stars
“Protoplanetary disks”
What are we seeing in these images?
Artist’s Rendition of a protoplanetary disk

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech

 Diagram of orbits in the
Artist’s rendition of protoplanetary
solar system
disk