The research was carried out by a team of scientists led by the Polytechnic Insтιтute of Paris – France, in collaboration with the Free University of Berlin (Germany), the University of Oxford (UK), the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Osaka (Japan).
They have reproduced in the laboratory a model of part of the molecular cloud that gives rise to the solar system.
According to Science Daily, such molecular clouds in the universe contain the building blocks of stars and planets, but they will remain in equilibrium and “peaceful” forever if nothing happens. .
The researchers used a special foam ball that has the properties of a dense region in the molecular cloud. A high-powered laser sends an explosive wave that travels through a gas chamber and reaches the foam ball. The whole process is observed with X-ray images.
The results showed that it was the explosion caused by the laser, which had the full properties of the so-called “supernova” that caused the gas and dust to gather and begin to rotate in the “germ” of a star. , causing it to gradually transition from a protostar to a true star. A protoplanetary disk began to form around it.
The Daily Mail quoted astrophysicist Bruno Albertazzi, a member of the research team, as saying that our primordial molecular cloud, where the Sun, Earth and all other sibling planets were formed, the same event happened.
A supernova is the brilliant death of a large and powerful star, usually occurring as a second death after the first collapse into a white dwarf. But that tragic death creates a “new life” for the molecular cloud it resides in.
Supernova explosions create huge shock waves, powerful enough to spawn new atomic nuclei, exert enormous pressure on the matter of the molecular cloud and excite everything to clump together. That powerful reaction triggered many of the key mechanisms for the birth of a star system.
The study has just been published in the journal Matter and Radiation at Extremes.
