wholesale exotics suppliers
All of the brilliant stars that light up our Milky Way Galaxy, including our own Sun, were born as a result of the gravitational collapse of an especially dense clump embedded within one of the many frigid, dark molecular clouds that float around like strange and mysterious phantoms in the space between stars. These eerie, gigantic, ghostly clouds composed of gas and dust are the stellar nurseries of the Cosmos. Bizarre as it may seem, things have to get very cold for a hot baby star to be born. This is because extreme cold causes gas to clump to greater densities. In February 2015, a team of Brazilian astronomers announced their remarkable discovery of a cluster of sparkling newborn stars forming on the very edge of our Milky Way.
The team of astronomers, led by Dr. Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, publish their research in the February 27, 2015 issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRS).
Our large, barred spiral Milky Way Galaxy possesses starlit arms, and gas and dust swirl out from its central bar. If observed from the side, our Galaxy would appear relatively flat, with most of the material located in a disk and within the central regions.
Giant Whirling, Shapeless Wanderers Of Interstellar Space
Our Universe’s multitude of dazzling stars all form within these massive, dense clumps of gas and dust that are lodged within the alluring, magnificent, dark, and frigid giant molecular clouds (GMCs) that primarily haunt the inner region of the Galactic disk in huge numbers. With many of the clumps in a single GMC, most–if not all–stellar sparklers are born together in clusters.
Within the undulating folds of these giant, dark clouds, fragile threads of material knit themselves together. Eventually, these delicate strands merge, and continue to grow ever larger and larger in size for hundreds of thousands of years. The relentless and merciless squeeze of gravity finally becomes so extreme that the hydrogen atoms–that are flying around within these very dense clumps–suddenly and dramatically fuse. This triggers the ignition of a new baby star’s stellar flames, and this fierce fire will roar and burn with glaring brilliance for as long as the star “lives.”
The process of nuclear fusion is what lights a star’s fires. Hot and very luminous protostars must balance two antagonistic forces in order to attain true stellar maturity. All main-sequence (hydrogen burning) stars, regardless of their age, must maintain a necessary balance between the two warring forces of radiation pressure and gravity. Radiation pressure pushes the star’s material outward, while gravity pulls everything inward. Radiation pressure is derived from nuclear fusion–the progressive fusion of hydrogen atoms into ever heavier and heavier atomic elements. Hydrogen is the lightest–as well as the most abundant–atomic element in the Universe. The progressive fusion of lighter atomic elements into heavier atomic elements within a star is termed stellar nucleosynthesis. This is the process that keeps the roiling, glaring ball of ferociously hot gas fluffy against the relentless hug of gravity–that tries to crush the star.
When the star finally grows old, and it has depleted its necessary supply of hydrogen fuel, its core collapses–heralding the end of the main-sequence star. Gravity has won the last battle against radiation pressure. The star can no longer remain fluffy as a result of the pressure manufactured by the process of nuclear fusion–stellar nucleosynthesis.
Small stars, like our Sun, perish with relative peace when compared to their more massive kin. Small stars cast their multicolored outer layers of gases into interstellar space, leaving behind a remnant core–a dense little stellar corpse termed a white dwarf. However, larger, more massive stars, confront their doom with rage. Massive stars, when they have reached the end of that long stellar road, blow themselves to pieces in the incandescent fury of a Type II (core-collapse) supernova explosion–that can, for one brief shining moment in Cosmic time, out-dazzle their entire host galaxy.
Giant, swirling, dark molecular clouds can exist in a stable condition for an extremely long time, but collisions between these frigid clouds, magnetic interactions, and supernova explosions can set off the collapse of a heavy clump–and when this occurs, due to collapse and fragmentation, protostars form, lighting up the darkness of their frigid, billowing nurseries.
Fiery Baby Stars Are Cradled At The Edge Of Our Galaxy
Dr. Denilso and his team studied data derived from NASA’s orbiting Wide-Field Infrared Observatory Explorer (WISE). WISE is an infrared wavelength astronomical space telescope that was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California on December 14, 2009, aboard a Delta II rocket. WISE was placed in hibernation in February 2011 when a transmitter failed. It was re-activated in 2013.
The team of Brazilian astronomers, as they looked at the data derived from WISE, not only discovered GMCs thousands of light-years above and below the Galactic disk, they also found that one of them surprisingly harbored two stellar clusters. This is the first time astronomers have detected stars being born in such a distant location.
The newly discovered clusters, dubbed Camargo 438 and 439, are inhabitants of the GMC named HRK 81.4-77.8. This dark, giant cloud is believed to be about 2 million years old and is approximately 160,000 light-years beneath the Galactic disk–an enormous distance away from the regions that commonly are star-forming factories. HRK 81.4-77.8 lurks in the direction of the constellation Cetus.
Dr. Denilso thinks that there are two possible explanations for this discovery. According to the first explanation, that is based on the so-called chimney model, violent events such as supernova blasts hurl dust and gas out of the Galactic disk. The ejected material then somersaults back–and in the process merges together to create GMCs.
The second possibility is that the interaction between our Milky Way Galaxy and its small, amorphous satellite galaxies, the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds, may shake up the gas that tumbles into our Galaxy–again resulting in the formation of GMCs that will serve as the frigid cradles of brilliant baby stars that will furiously heat up the cold gas with their new fires.
Dr. Denilso commented in a February 27, 2015 Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Press Release that “Our work shows that the space around the Galaxy is a lot less empty than we thought. The new clusters of stars are truly exotic. In a few million years, any inhabitants of planets around the stars will have a grand view of the outside of the Milky Way, something no human being will probably ever see.”
“Now we want to understand how the ingredients for making stars made it to such a distant spot. We need more data and some serious work on computer models to try to answer this question,” Dr. Denilso continued to note.
The chimney model demands that several hundred massive stars exploded as supernovae over several generations, forming a superwind that hurled HRK 81.4-77.8 into its present position. Over a time span of millions of years, the bubbles that were formed by the stellar blasts may then themselves compress material–thus creating more stars and fueling the ejection of material in a so-called “Galactic fountain”, where gas and dust ultimately rain back down on to the disk.
Leave a Reply