Cosmic Ice Holds Recipes for Molecules
In dark, cold clouds where stars are just beginning to form, dust grains put on icy coats. This ice is not just frozen water: it contains dissolved carbon dioxide, methanol, ammonia, and other molecules.
Stellar Wind Kicks Up Dust
A newborn star is like a kitchen mixer: it whips up the surrounding cloud, and splatters fly in all directions. Only instead of batter, it's gas and dust. Previously, astronomers had only seen gas jets, and dust was considered too fragile: the shock wave should shatter dust grains into atoms.
The Stellar Forge: A First Glimpse at the Birth of Cosmic Crystals
In the furnace of star formation, the heat reaches 900 degrees Celsius, like a glowing blast furnace. It is in this hellish heat that cosmic crystals are born. Astronomers have for the first time caught the moment when crystalline dust appears right during an accretion flare (when the star gobbles up surrounding gas) at the very young star EC 53, still cocooned in dense gas.
The Dance of Two Protostars: How Eccentric Pairs Are Born
In a dense cloud of gas and dust where massive stars are born, two young stars recently passed very close to each other. Their dance has lasted only about sixty years, and astronomers have now seen it in detail for the first time.