 (Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI) The Very Large Array, one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, consists of 27 radio antennas in a Y-shaped configuration on the Plains of San Agustin 50 miles west of Socorro, N.M. Each antenna is 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter. The data from the antennas is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 36km (22 miles) across, with the sensitivity of a dish 130 meters (422 feet) in diameter.
Massive Star Formation: Inside, Outside and All Around
Press Release
National Science Foundation
DECEMBER 26, 2006 Scientists think they know how stars the size of our Sun are formed, but the theory breaks down for much larger stars. How do they accumulate masses up to 10 times or more than that of our own Sun? Now, new observations using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope near Socorro, N.M., may help solve the mystery.
Maria Teresa Beltran, of the University of Barcelona in Spain, and astronomers from Italy and Hawaii, report their findings in the Sept. 28 issue of the journal Nature.
Stars form when gravity pulls giant intrastellar clouds of dust and gas inward, compacting the material into what becomes a star. But to make giant stars, astronomers propose the matter falling in instead forms a disk that whirls around the star. The whirling disk allows more matter in and also flings material outward.
"There should be material falling inward, rushing outward and rotating around the star all at the same time," Beltran said.
She and her team studied a young star called G24 A1, which is about 20 times more massive than the Sun, and that's exactly what they observed. It's the first time all three types of motion have been seen in a single, young massive star and makes a strong case for how very massive stars form.
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