Stellar Nursery

  • Released Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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Animation of stellar nursery with shockwaves.

Stellar nurseries are dense clouds of gas in interstellar space. Protostars form as the gas begins to clump due to gravity. These protostars heat up due to the compression of material taking place in them and throw off material at high speeds, creating shockwaves. As the shockwaves propogate throughout the cloud of gas they can trigger additional protostar formation.

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Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Tuesday, January 26, 2010.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

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