{"id":17000,"date":"2019-11-18T08:40:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T08:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=17000"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:39:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:39:33","slug":"molecular-cloud-orion-a-in-infrared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/molecular-cloud-orion-a-in-infrared\/","title":{"rendered":"Molecular Cloud Orion A in Infrared"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Orion A, as seen by ESA\u2019s\u00a0Herschel<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Planck<\/a>\u00a0space observatories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stars form within giant clouds like Molecular Cloud Orion A in Infrared\nof gas and dust that pervade galaxies like our own Milky Way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n2019, this\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0was published in\u00a0Astronomy\n& Astrophysics<\/em>\u00a0by J. D. Soler, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy\n(Heidelberg, Germany).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study finds that matter within the ISM is coupled to the\nsurrounding magnetic field and can only move along its lines, creating a sort\nof \u2018conveyor belts\u2019 of field-aligned mat-ter, as expected from the effect of\nelectromagnetic forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When these interact with an ex-ternal source of energy \u2013 such as\nan exploding star, or other material moving through the galaxy \u2013 these flows\nalong the magnetic field lines converge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process creates a compressed pocket of higher density that\nappears to be perpendicular to the field itself. As more and more matter\nstreams inwards, this region becomes increasingly dense, until it eventually\nreaches the critical density for gravitational collapse and crumples in on\nit-self, leading to the formation of stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 1350 light years away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\n1350 light years away, Orion A is the nearest heavyweight stellar nursery to\nus. The cloud is packed full of gas \u2013 it contains so much material, in fact,\nthat it would be capable of producing tens of thousands of Suns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with its sibling,\u00a0Orion B<\/a>, the cloud makes up the\u00a0Orion Molecular Cloud Complex<\/a>, a vast star-forming\nregion within the constella-tion of Orion, which is most prominent in the night\nsky during northern hemisphere winter and southern hemisphere summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndifferent colours visible here indicate the light emitted by interstellar dust\ngrains mixed within the gas, as observed by Herschel at far-infrared and\nsub-millimetre wavelengths, while the texture of faint grey bands stretching\nacross the frame, based on Planck\u2019s measurements of the direction of the\npolarised light emitted by the dust, show the orientation of the magnetic\nfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nevident from images like this, the space that sits between stars is not empty\nbut is instead filled with a cool substance known as the interstellar medium\n(ISM) \u2013 a mix of gas and dust that often clumps together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When these clumps become dense enough they start to collapse\nunder their own gravity and become hotter and hotter and denser and denser\nuntil they spark something exciting: the creation of new stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magnetism\nis an important component of the ISM. Magnetic fields permeate the Universe,\nand are involved in helping clouds of matter maintain the delicate balance\nbetween pressure and gravity that eventually lead to the birth of stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mechanisms that oppose the gravitational collapse of\nstar-forming clouds remain somewhat unclear, but a\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0suggests that interstellar\nmagnetic fields play a significant role in guiding the flows of matter in the\nISM, and may be a key player in preventing inter-stellar cloud collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data comprising this image were gathered during\u00a0Planck\u2019s all-sky observations<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Herschel\u2019s \u2018Gould Belt Survey\u2019<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operational until 2013, both Herschel and Planck were\ninstrumental in exploring the cool and the distant Universe, shedding light on\nmany cosmic phenomena, from the formation of stars in our Milky Way galaxy to\nthe expansion history of the entire Universe.<\/p>\n
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The Orion A, as seen by ESA\u2019s\u00a0Herschel\u00a0and\u00a0Planck\u00a0space observatories. Stars form within giant clouds like Molecular Cloud Orion A in Infrared of gas and dust that pervade galaxies like our own Milky Way. In 2019, this\u00a0study\u00a0was published in\u00a0Astronomy & Astrophysics\u00a0by J. D. Soler, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Heidelberg, Germany). The study finds that matter within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",1417,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-200x200.png",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-300x106.png",300,106,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-768x271.png",750,265,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-1024x361.png",750,264,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",1417,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",1417,500,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",1200,423,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",870,307,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",600,212,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",600,212,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-760x490.png",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-550x360.png",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a-95x65.png",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",640,226,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",96,34,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/orian-a.png",150,53,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}