Regardless of the cruel atmosphere, new stars are forming close to the core of the Milky Method

The central core of our galaxy is not a friendly place for star formation, and yet new observations have revealed nearly four dozen newly formed systems. These results challenge our understanding of the intricate physics of our galactic heart.

The core of our galaxy may be pretty, but it’s not a friendly place. Within the innermost 1000 light years of the core known as the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), there is simply too much activity for stars to form. Stars can only form after clumps of gas have cooled and condensed, and anything that interferes with this process prevents star formation. In essence, it has long been assumed that warming and turbulence due to all the frenetic activities would slow down the new star formation in the CMZ.

However, a team of astronomers using the ALMA telescope found a surprise.

“It’s like hearing babies cry in a place we expected to be sterile,” says Xing Lu, an astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. “It is very difficult for babies to be born and grow up healthy in an environment that is too noisy and unstable. However, our observations show that baby stars are still forming in the severely disturbed areas around the Galactic Center. “

The team was able to detect over 800 dense gas and dust cores. These “eggs” can eventually become stars. However, in order to look for active star formation, the team had to find something else: energetic outflows from the cores, an important signal that stars are beginning to form in them.

In the abandoned CMZ, the astronomers found 43 cores with drains. Previous estimates of star formation within the CMZ had predicted that new stars should only reach about one-tenth the rate in the solar environment.

“Although earlier observations indicated that the total star formation rates in the giant molecular clouds in the Galactic Center are suppressed to around 10%, this observation shows that the star formation processes hidden in dense molecular gas clouds are not very different from those in the Sun’s neighborhood,” explains Shuichiro Inutsuka, Professor at Nagoya University and co-author of the research paper. “The ratio of the number of star-forming cores to the starless cores seems to be only a few times smaller than that in the solar neighborhood. This can be viewed as the ratio of their respective lifetimes. We believe that the average duration of the starless core stage in the Galactic Center could be slightly longer than in the Solar District. More research is needed to explain why this is so. “

The team hopes to further study these nuclei with ALMA and other telescopes to get a better feel for this surprising result – and what it could mean for our understanding of star formation across the galaxy.

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