A new study by Stella Offner, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, indicates that magnetic waves are an important factor driving star formation in the huge gas clouds that are regions of star formation. Her research sheds light on the processes that are responsible for establishing the properties of stars, which, in turn, affects the formation of planets orbiting them, and, ultimately, the possibility of habitability of these planets. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.
Offner used a supercomputer to create models of the many processes taking place inside the cloud, where stars form, in order to understand which processes lead to which effects.
“These clouds are pretty harsh places,” Offner said. 'It's an extreme environment with all kinds of different physics happening all at once, including gravity, turbulence, radiation from the winds of star formation (called stellar feedback). At the same time, the main question was: why are the conditions in these clouds so harsh? '
Some astronomers attribute the observed motions to gravitational collapse, while others attribute it to turbulence and stellar feedback. Offner wanted to test these theories and study how stars shape their birth environment. However, she faced great difficulties – it is almost impossible to use telescopic observations of these clouds to separate the influence of various processes. For this she needed computer models.
Cloud models
Comparing cloud patterns to gravity, magnetic fields, and stars, Offner noticed additional motions. Her models showed that stellar winds interacting with a cloudy magnetic field generate energy and affect gas at much greater distances than previously thought: these local magnetic fields cause action at a distance.
'The wind pushes the field – it is like rubber bands that are being pulled out. The waves are ahead of the wind and cause distant movements. '
The study has implications for a 'tug of war' between feedback, the effect that a newly formed star has on its environment, and gravity across the solar system, down to entire galaxies.
In the future, Offner plans to study this process on a large scale, both in time and in space. Her current study focused on one region in stellar clouds, but she stressed that future studies will explore the effects of magnetic fields and feedback over a wider range.
