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Gravitational collapse. Gravitational collapse is the contraction of an astronomical object due to the influence of its own gravity, which tends to draw matter inward toward the center of gravity. [1] Gravitational collapse is a fundamental mechanism for structure formation in the universe. Over time an initial, relatively smooth distribution ...
v. t. e. The Jeans instability is a concept in astrophysics that describes an instability that leads to the gravitational collapse of a cloud of gas or dust. [1] It causes the collapse of interstellar gas clouds and subsequent star formation. It occurs when the internal gas pressure is not strong enough to prevent the gravitational collapse of ...
A molecular cloud, sometimes called a stellar nursery (if star formation is occurring within), is a type of interstellar cloud, the density and size of which permit absorption nebulae, the formation of molecules (most commonly molecular hydrogen, H 2), and the formation of H II regions. This is in contrast to other areas of the interstellar ...
Stellar evolution starts with the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud. Typical giant molecular clouds are roughly 100 light-years (9.5 × 10 14 km) across and contain up to 6,000,000 solar masses (1.2 × 10 37 kg). As it collapses, a giant molecular cloud breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.
This model posits that, 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar System was formed by the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud spanning several light-years. Many stars, including the Sun, were formed within this collapsing cloud. The gas that formed the Solar System was slightly more massive than the Sun itself.
The nebular hypothesis says that the Solar System formed from the gravitational collapse of a fragment of a giant molecular cloud, [9] most likely at the edge of a Wolf-Rayet bubble. [10] The cloud was about 20 parsecs (65 light years) across, [9] while the fragments were roughly 1 parsec (three and a quarter light-years) across. [11]
Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space, sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or " star -forming regions", collapse and form stars. [ 1 ] As a branch of astronomy, star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium (ISM) and giant molecular clouds (GMC) as precursors ...
Many astrophysical objects result from the gravitational collapse of gaseous objects (for example, star formation occurs when molecular clouds collapse under gravity), and thus the stability of gaseous systems is of great interest. In general, a physical system is 'stable' if: 1) It is in equilibrium (there is a balance of forces such that the ...