Stars may form 10 times faster than thought

Weak magnetic fields detected by China’s FAST telescope could upend theory of star formation.

Dust in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, seen as pink hues in far-infrared light, traces dense regions of gas where stars form. A study of one of the cloud’s stellar embryos suggests the process is fast. ESA/HERSCHEL/NASA/JPL-CALTECH; R. HURT/JPL-CALTECH/CC-BY-SA

Hubble Finds Evidence of Galaxy Star Birth Regulated by Black-Hole Fountain

Astronomers have uncovered a unique process for how the universe’s largest elliptical galaxies continue making stars long after their peak years of star birth. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s exquisite high resolution and ultraviolet-light sensitivity allowed the astronomers to see brilliant knots of hot, blue stars forming along the jets of active black holes found in the centers of giant elliptical galaxies.

This artist’s rendering shows a central black hole interacting with gas in the galaxy’s halo to create a self-regulating cycle. In this cycle, jets shooting out of the galaxy’s center heat a halo of surrounding gas, controlling the rate at which the gas cools and falls into the galaxy to form stars

Herschel helps to understand the link between active black holes and star formation rate

The Herschel Space Observatory has shown galaxies with the most powerful, active black holes at their cores produce fewer stars than galaxies with less active black holes. The results are the first to demonstrate black holes suppressed galactic star formation when the universe was less than half its current age. Herschel is a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions.

This artistically modified image of the local galaxy Arp 220, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, helps illustrate the Herschel results. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Reconstructing the star birth environment in a globular cluster

Using state of the art computer simulations, a team of astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have found the first evidence that the way in which stars form depends on their birth environment. The team, based at the University of Bonn in Germany, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the massive star cluster R 136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. R136 is a potential birth site of much more massive stars, although unconfirmed, than observed in "normal" sites of present-day star formation. Credit: NASA, J. Trauger (JPL), J. Westphal (Caltech)