Dust particles crucial for formation of heavy stars

In a computer simulation, University of Groningen astronomer Seyit Hocuk and colleagues Stephanie Cazaux and Marco Spaans, asessed the effect of small dust particles on the formation of heavy stars. The paper will be published on 23 January in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

They conclude that grain surface chemistry not only affects the chemical abundances in the gas phase, but also leaves a distinct imprint in the thermal evolution that impacts the fragmentation of a star-forming cloud. As a final step, the authors present the equation of state of a collapsing molecular cloud that has grain surface chemistry included.

The video shows a simulation of a collapsing molecular cloud. Credit: Seyit Hocuk.