A new study led by Canadian astronomers provides unprecedented insights into the birth of stars. Using observations from the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Hawaii-based James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in the United States, astronomers from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) have discovered that star formation is more regulated by pressure from their surroundings than previously thought.
The birth of stars occurs deep within dense concentrations of interstellar gas and dust – known as cores – when their internal support structure becomes overwhelmed. These cores typically contain several times the mass of the Sun over a region about 10,000 times the size of the solar system. Cores are deeply embedded within molecular gas clouds which are located throughout our Milky Way Galaxy…
Published by Space Daily – http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Galaxy_Is_Under_Pressure_to_Make_Stars_999.html