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Spitzer Telescope Witnesses Star Being Born

Arvisp tips news of a discovery by astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii of the youngest known star in a nearby star-forming region. From the Yale press release: "Astronomers think L1448-IRS2E is in between the prestellar phase, when a particularly dense region of a molecular cloud first begins to clump together, and the protostar phase, when gravity has pulled enough material together to form a dense, hot core out of the surrounding envelope. ... Most protostars are between one to 10 times as luminous as the Sun, with large dust envelopes that glow at infrared wavelengths. Because L1448-IRS2E is less than one tenth as luminous as the Sun, the team believes the object is too dim to be considered a true protostar. Yet they also discovered that the object is ejecting streams of high-velocity gas from its center, confirming that some sort of preliminary mass has already formed and the object has developed beyond the prestellar phase. This kind of outflow is seen in protostars (as a result of the magnetic field surrounding the forming star), but has not been seen at such an early stage until now."

22 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Short but not short enough by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unfortunately, when they say that the protostar phase is short they mean on astronomical timescales. The protostar phase lasts on the order of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. So it is unlikely that we are going to be able to have the opportunity to watch a protostar become a star.

    1. Re:Short but not short enough by DJRumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, but seeing these phases from various stars will eventually give them the picture they need. They don't need to see the entire life cycle of a single star. As long as they can view the highlights, and piece them together in the proper order, it's almost as good as watching it reel to reel so to speak considering the long time span for the event and the fact that our span is so relatively short.

    2. Re: Short but not short enough by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, but seeing these phases from various stars will eventually give them the picture they need. They don't need to see the entire life cycle of a single star. As long as they can view the highlights, and piece them together in the proper order, it's almost as good as watching it reel to reel so to speak considering the long time span for the event and the fact that our span is so relatively short.

      It sounds like this one may cause them to rethink the standing model of starbirth already. But maybe it's just an odd one.

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    3. Re:Short but not short enough by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      What's even nicer about this is that, once we know where they are, we can observe them with even better and better instruments for the next tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

      In archaeology, they will leave parts of sites unexcavated, so that future people with better technology will be able to excavate it and learn more about the people. This has already paid off with stuff like ground-penetrating radar and pollen analysis. But the ultimate problem there is that the site is going to be used up, sooner or later. Not so with the stars :D

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    4. Re:Short but not short enough by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

      If you fly there (800ly), accelerating constantly, you should see a good fast-forward movie of it (special relativity).

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    5. Re:Short but not short enough by The+Fell · · Score: 1

      Actually, due to light not reaching us instantly, but actually quite slowly to me, that protostar has probably already finished forming, or is close/halfway done.

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    6. Re:Short but not short enough by sznupi · · Score: 1

      "Actually"? The only difference in those two variants of description is preferred reference frame, they are equally valid. There's no place for "actually"...

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    7. Re: Short but not short enough by IRWolfie- · · Score: 1

      From the Article it seems this discovery is further evidence towards the current standing model, the standing model being the collapse of molecular clouds into a covered protostellar object. The lack of previous observations does not necessarily mean that ejection of mass was not predicted for a protostellar object of this age but that it is so short lived as to be difficult to observe.

  2. It Should be Named... by mim · · Score: 1

    BARBARA!

    1. Re:It Should be Named... by slick7 · · Score: 1

      Is this with Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson or Judy Garland and James Mason, you insensitive clod.

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  3. "Plasma!" by Slur · · Score: 1

    Earthworm Jim has a point. Plasma has some amazing properties that marry electricity, magnetism, and quantum effects. We can study some of these things in the lab, but the real fun doesn't begin until you have something as big as this proto-star. It will be interesting to see what can be learned!

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  4. In other news by Rostasan · · Score: 1

    Geologists have observed the birth of a mountain.

    The title is a little misleading, but this observation is still another significant piece of the puzzle.

  5. Perseus is going to be pissed by buchner.johannes · · Score: 3, Informative

    TFA shows the Orion [nebula].

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    1. Re:Perseus is going to be pissed by arielCo · · Score: 1
      I noticed that too, but then read the caption and confirmed my suspicion:

      Astronomers caught a glimpse of a future star just as it is being born out of the surrounding gas and dust, in a star-forming region similar to the one pictured above

      There are some pics of the actual L1448 here

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    2. Re:Perseus is going to be pissed by ogre7299 · · Score: 2, Informative

      An actual Spitzer image of L1448 is here: http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~jjtobin/images/L1448.jpg and the preprint of the Astrophysical Journal paper is located here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.2443

  6. Somehow, someone always manages to spin it by arielCo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Quoth The Bible Vanquishes Science (4th result when Googling "L1448-IRSE"):

    The astronomers reasoned that it has not yet ignited its nuclear fires because it has not gravitationally attracted enough gas to arrive at the protostar phase. Despite their claim that the object does not have an active core, astronomers admit that it is ejecting streams of high velocity gas.

    Why do scientists cling to their mathematical theories when the visible evidence is contradictory? The scientific version of cosmic history denies what is visible - the visible history of how galaxies and stars formed.

    [snip]

    Scientists must accept by faith that atoms are immutable - because they used this idea to contrive their definitions, measuring units and mathematical laws. For example, scientists use the idea that atomic clocks dither with perpetual motion to define most of their measuring units. Yet no ancient galaxy shines with the frequencies of modern atoms. To support their creed, scientists invent invisible matter, invisible black holes, invisible space-time, vacuums changing the frequency of light etc. Their universe, by their own admission, is 99% invisible. No pagan myth maker could weave such incredible myths - backed by unnatural, mathematical things - never seen in any lab or photographed in any part of the spectrum.

    [snip more]

    Why is L1448-IRS2E glowing in microwave and infrared, like ancient galaxies? Why is it ejecting high speed jets like ancient quasars? The Bible states that God calls the stars to continually come out, that He spreads out the heavens like a curtain. He even says He formed the Sun, Moon and stars and placed them in the raqiya, the spreading place. Everywhere in the universe we see a biblical cosmic history - exactly as described in the Bible. The Perseus giant molecular cloud is part of a long steam of similar clouds, a star stream, ejected from the core of our galaxy. In billions of galaxies we see that orbits accelerate outward as matter keeps on taking up more volume and the atomic clocks also accelerate. In a universe where matter keeps changing, you cannot invent an empirical system that can validly decode earth history. But you can see Biblical cosmic history with optics. New telescopes continue to show a biblical cosmic history. How great will be the fall of Western science before God’s powerful Word.

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    1. Re:Somehow, someone always manages to spin it by arielCo · · Score: 1

      As I said above, it's the 4th result when Googling "L1448-IRSE" (alas). I guess you're calling the author a fossil, since he posted only yesterday.

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    2. Re:Somehow, someone always manages to spin it by Chowderbags · · Score: 1

      I still prefer Gene Ray for my source of crackpot theories.

    3. Re:Somehow, someone always manages to spin it by arielCo · · Score: 1

      Man, you like the hard stuff - more like brain damage ;)

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      This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
  7. Spitzer Telescope? by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    If this is the Eliot Spitzer telescope, its gonna cost you $1000 per peek.

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  8. Oops... by no1home · · Score: 1, Funny

    This kind of outflow is seen in protostars...

    Anybody else read this as This kind of outflow is seen in pornstars...?

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  9. I love it when... by nilbog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love it when there are articles about pictures that don't include the pictures they are talking about. I'd rather read about an incredible picture than see it.

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