Clouds of gas and dust in space, called the cradles of stars, often, contrary to expectations, remain empty. But scientists have found out why they are not formed new stars: it’s all in the collision gas at too high speeds.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1300 one of the most beautiful of the observed person, but in her clouds of gas and dust is born very small stars, despite the fact that the raw materials to do this there.
A new computer simulation could explain the paradox that is observed in some other galaxies. Gas clouds collide at such high speeds that it prevents the formation of new stars. That is, high-speed collisions of gas clouds could hinder the birth of stars immediately after the Big Bang. And the mystery of the early Universe long vexed astrophysicists.
Located about 68 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Eridanus galaxy NGC 1300 resembles a reverse letter S with external spiral arms is blue and yellow-orange stripe through the center of the galaxy. These colors indicate that the gas and dust to form new stars in the sleeves, but in the strip, stretching for 50 thousand light years from the center of the galaxy, they are very little or not at all.
To understand why, in the yellow-orange band of the galaxy NGC 1300, consisting of dust and gas, the expected number of new stars, researchers have modeled the orbit of the gas clouds around the galactic center. It turned out, the gravitational pull of the star causes clouds to face.
“We believe that the collision speed of the clouds is very high,” — says
Yusuke Fujimoto from the Research of the Carnegie institution in Washington.
Scientists have calculated that the clouds collide at a speed exceeding “normal” about 10 kilometers per second. High-speed collisions cause so much turbulence in the clouds that it just doesn’t give stars to form.
Fujimoto and his colleagues also suggest that high-speed collisions of gas clouds prevented the creation of the stars immediately after the Big Bang, when the universe was not so big and close. Star formation reached its peak only after a few billion years after the birth of the Universe.
