Japanese researchers have discovered that a star’s full-grown size doesn’t depend on the size of its core. It depends on how good was it at competing with its neighboring stars for resources.
This could be a breakthrough as earlier it was believed that the mass of a newly-formed core or one from a dead star – both seeds of new star formation – had a huge role to play in the size of the stars, as per research published recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
If the discovery shows similar results for other areas of the space, it could reiterate the understanding of how stars form, and especially how they interact with each other.
The team thoroughly examined the Orion Nebula Cluster and measured the mass of both newly formed stars and the gas cores that were yet to develop into the new stars. They found out that core mass had very little impact on the size of the star and mass. This suggests that the new stars actually compete with each other to claim nearby cosmic gases.
The scientists want to verify these results by examining other pockets of the space. It will allow them to determine whether they actually discovered the process of star formation across the universe or something that is only restricted to the Orion Nebular Cluster.
Regardless of their findings, the competitive accretion model for star formation contradicts that a star’s surroundings have a huge role in its formation, as assumed previously. It also means that future models shouldn’t examine extraterrestrial bodies as standalone objects, as their surroundings and environment have an impact on their formation too.
Examining celestial bodies will soon become easier, as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will soon be launched. It could detect ammonia around six gas dwarf planets after just a few orbits, which means it can potentially find life signatures on other planets in just 60 hours.
