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When stars are born, they do it inside a molecular cloud. Astronomers long assumed that the “crèche” supplied all the nutrients that protostars needed to form. However, it turns out they get help from outside the nest.

A new study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics delved into the role of streamers and filaments in the star-birth process. Think of them as channels that extend out from the interior of the stellar creche, sometimes out as far as 10,000 astronomical units (about 0.15 light-years). The research team found a connection between these streamers and filaments and star-formation activity. Essentially, the streamers provide a star-forming disk with fresh gas to nourish the baby star as it grows.

Star Formation at a Glance

The standard story about star birth goes like this: cool, dense molecular clouds are the crèches of stars. The material begins to accumulate preferentially in one part of the cloud. These clouds are mostly hydrogen but also contain other elements. For example, supernova explosions seed nearby molecular clouds with heavier elements (such as iron).

As the cloud contracts, its own self-gravity pulls in more and more material. Eventually, the temperatures and pressures get high enough in the “overdense” region that a protostar begins to shine. It continues to grow, attracting more and more material. At some point, nuclear fusion begins in the core of the region, and that’s when the star is born.

This whole process takes millions of years and also involves magnetic fields and other factors. However, when astronomers noticed strange streamers and filaments in star birth regions, they wondered what roles they played in the process. They also speculated about the origins of these structures.

Looking at Protostars in Barnard 5

A team at Max Planck, led by Ph.D. student Maria Teresa Valdiva Mena, focused on a particularly interesting star in the Barnard 5 region of the sky. This is a molecular cloud that lies in the direction of the constellation Perseus. There are actually several protostars in the area, but one sports two filaments. To get a handle on what’s happening there, the team used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, along with two other telescopes to study the filaments. “Our aim was to trace the journey of gas from outside of the filament that contains the protostar to the protostellar disks, bridging the gap between different scales of star formation,” said Valdivia-Mena, lead author of the study.

The gas flow in Barnard 5 at three different scales. Fresh gas (left) moves inside filaments toward condensations (black contours) and the protostar (yellow). Yellow curve shows the streamer transporting material toward the protostellar disk. Right images zoom into the streamer, with red and blue showing outflows toward the disk (brown). Courtesy MPE.
The gas flow in Barnard 5 at three different scales. Fresh gas (left) moves inside filaments toward condensations (black contours) and the protostar (yellow). The yellow curve shows the streamer transporting material toward the protostellar disk. Right images zoom into the streamer, with red and blue showing outflows toward the disk (brown). Courtesy MPE.

The three different telescopes showed that the streamers are conducting chemically fresh gas from the larger nebula into the birth envelope. The ALMA data actually showed a streamer feeding right into the protostellar disk surrounding a soon-to-be-born star. The streamers and filaments seem to be an integral part of the starforming process by providing material from other parts of the nebula.

“These results are very exciting because they show that the star-formation process is a multiscale process,” said Jaime Pineda, second author of the Barnard 5 study. “Accretion flows and streamers connect the young stellar objects with the parental cloud. This dynamic process of feeding the young star might even affect the whole disk and planet formation process, although we need future observations to confirm this.”

Protostars and Planets

It isn’t just stars that are influenced by these flows of fresh gas into a birth cloud. Their future planets will show the chemical influence exerted by filaments and streamers. Just as a quick review, a star’s planets form from material in the protostellar
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If Warp Drives are Impossible, Maybe Faster Than Light Communication is Still on the Table?

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I’m sure many readers of Universe Today are like me, fans of the science fiction genre. From the light sabres of Star Wars to the neuralyzer of Men in Black, science fiction has crazy inventions aplenty and once science fiction writers dream it, scientists and engineers try and create it. Perhaps the holy grail of science fiction creations is the warp drive from Star Trek and it is fair to say that many have tried to work out if it is even possible to travel faster than the speed of light. To date, alas, to no avail but if the warp drive eludes us, what about faster than light communication! 

Let’s start with the warp drive.  The concept is a drive that can propel a spacecraft at speeds in excess of the speed of light. According to the Star Trek writers, the speed was described in factors of warp speed where they are converted to multiples of the speed of light by multiplication with the cubic function of the warp factor itself! Got it! Don’t worry, it’s not crucial to this article. Essentially ‘warp 1’ is equivalent to the speed of light, ‘warp 2’ is eight times speed of light and ‘warp 3’ is 27 times the speed of light and so it goes on! Therein lies the problem; achieving faster than light travel. 

In attempts to try to understand this, numerous experiments have been undertaken, of note Bill Bertozzi at MIT accelerated electrons and observed them becoming heavier and heavier until they couldn’t be accelerated any more! Once at the speed of light, it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object further! The maximum speed he achieved was the speed of light. In other experiments, synchronised atomic clocks were taken on board airliners and found that, after travelling at high speed relative to a reference clock on Earth, time had run slower! The upshot is that the faster you go, the slower time passes and at the speed of light, time stops! If time stops, so does speed! hmmmm this is tricky. 

The science of faster than light travel aside, In a number of potential warp drive designs have surfaced like the Alcubierre Drive proposed in 1994. However, the common factor to provide the faster than light travel is something called negative energy which is required in copious amounts. The study of quantum mechanics shows that even empty space has energy and anything that has less energy than empty space has ‘negative energy’.  The problem (among many) is that no-one knows how to get negative energy in huge amounts to power the warp drives.

Two-dimensional visualization of an Alcubierre drive, showing the opposing regions of expanding and contracting spacetime that displace the central region (Credit : AllenMcC)
Two-dimensional visualization of an Alcubierre drive, showing the opposing regions of expanding and contracting spacetime that displace the central region (Credit : AllenMcC)

It seems the warp drive is some time away yet but what about faster than light communication, could that work? Accelerating macroscopic objects, like spacecraft requires high amounts of negative energy but communication, as a recent paper explains, which operates at much smaller scale requires less energy. Quite a bit less in fact, less than is contained inside a lightning bolt.  Perhaps more tantalising is that we may just be able to create small amounts of negative energy using today’s technology.

One of the ways this can be achieved is to ensure the proper configuration and distribution of negative energy to channel communication.  The paper proposes a tubular distribution of negative energy in so called hypertubes to enable the acceleration and deceleration of warp bubbles for superluminal communication.  Achieving this for long distance communication will require special devices to be designed and built but as the papers author Lorenzo Pieri concludes “it is tantalising to consider the fabrication of microchips capable of superluminal computing”.  Yes, that is an exciting proposition but the thought of firing messages out to the cosmos at speeds faster than that of light.. Just wow!

Source : Hyperwave: Hyper-Fast Communication within General Relativity

The post If Warp Drives are Impossible, Maybe Faster Than Light Communication is Still on the Table? appeared first on Universe Today.

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Reader Appreciation Sale: Join The Big Outside for 30% Off

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Dear reader,

I love the holidays, partly because I make a point of spending a lot of time outside with family and friends. But it’s also a time when I reflect on how much I enjoy my lifestyle—and how much I appreciate readers like you who follow and support my blog. To show my appreciation, I have a special gift for you.

Right now, I’m offering you 30% off the cost of a one-year subscription to The Big Outside.

That means you get full access to all stories at my blog—including my many stories about the trips I’ve taken, with my expert tips on planning them—for $41.97 instead of the usual cost of $59.95 for a full year, or just $3.50 a month.

That’s the biggest discount I offer on a subscription all year—just in time to start researching your trips for next year. Don’t miss out!

Go to my Join page now and click on the Subscribe button under the Annual subscription option (Best Value: $4.99/Month). Enter discount code TBO30 and the price will reset to $41.97. Then just fill out the form and complete the purchase. The 30% discount applies only to a one-year subscription. You also get one free or deeply discounted e-guide, a $12.95 value; I’ll personally email you the discount code for that after you subscribe.

Go to my Join page now and subscribe for a year for just $3.50 a month!

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Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Michael Lanza of The Big Outside above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.
” data-image-caption=”Me above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming; and in Death Hollow in southern Utah (lead photo, above).
” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=900%2C600&ssl=1″ alt=”Michael Lanza of The Big Outside above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.” class=”wp-image-61100″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=150%2C100&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w” sizes=”(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ />Me above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming; and in Death Hollow in southern Utah (lead photo, above).

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The Early Universe Had No Problem Making Barred Spiral Galaxies

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Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are like cosmic snowflakes—no two are exactly alike. For many years, astronomers thought spirals couldn’t exist until the universe was about half its present age. Now, a newly discovered galaxy in the early Universe is challenging that idea.

CEERS-2112 is an early “cosmic snowflake” with spiral arms and a bar across its middle. The amazing thing is that it’s showing this structure when the Universe was only 2 billion years old. That’s about five billion years earlier than astronomers expected something like that to exist. The fact that a perfectly formed spiral exists so early tells us that our ideas about galaxy formation in early cosmic history need some re-tuning.

Surveying the Early Universe

This galaxy showed up in a survey done by the JWST called “Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science” (CEERS). It uses JWST imaging and spectroscopy to do a survey of the early Universe to find the earliest galaxy. The analysis of the CEERS-2112 galaxy was done by an international team led by astronomer Luca Constantin of the Centro de Astrobiología in Spain.

CEERS results should show astronomers the early populations of galaxies at high redshifts (distances). They will also help them estimate related star-formation conditions and black hole growth. Finally, the work should give some insight into the formation of galaxy disks and bulges. Essentially, CEERS data should add to our store of knowledge about first light and reionization (which occurred after the Big Bang) and explain the formation and evolution of early galaxies.

Early deep-field images of very distant galaxies show shreds of galaxies and irregular clumps of stars in the early Universe. That was evident in some of the first Hubble Deep-Field images. The most distant ones in the images looked more blobby and indistinct. And, some of them appeared to be colliding, which fits into the collisional model of galaxy formation.

This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It shows some galaxies in the early Universe, (which appear as red blobs). Credit: NASA/ESA/HUDF
This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It shows some galaxies in the early Universe, (which appear as red blobs). Credit: NASA/ESA/HUDF

Forming Galaxies in the Early Universe

Prior to the Hubble and JWST eras, astronomers really felt that it would take a long time to form spiral galaxies. They often describe a hierarchical model of galaxy formation. That’s where smaller clumpy galaxies collide to form larger ones. Over time, those objects begin to develop structures like spiral arms and bars.

“In such galaxies, bars can form spontaneously due to instabilities in the spiral structure or gravitational effects from a neighboring galaxy,” according to astronomer and team member Alexander de la Vega. He is a post-doctoral researcher currently at the University of California Riverside. “In the past, when the Universe was very young, galaxies were unstable and chaotic. It was thought that bars could not form or last long in galaxies in the early universe.”

The spiral arms are likely the result of density waves moving through the galaxy. The bars also form from density waves radiating out from the center. That compresses material in the arms and bars, leading to bursts of star formation. That could explain why these regions in galaxies seem brighter, with their populations of hot young stars. All of this takes time to accomplish. That’s why astronomers suggested that it would take about half the age of the Universe to form spiral galaxies.

CEERS-2112 is Part of the Early Universe

CEERS-2112 upends the discussion about spiral formation, according to de la Vega. “Finding CEERS-2112 shows that galaxies in the early Universe could be as ordered as the Milky Way,” he said. “This is surprising because galaxies were much more chaotic in the early Universe and very few had similar structures to the Milky Way.”

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