NWO grant for studying life cycle of stars and planets with GUSTO

Stars and planets form from the clumping of gas within a tenuous space cloud. While the clump becomes denser and denser under the influence of gravity, it also reshapes into a flat disk due to its rotation. Eventually, enough much mass has accumulated in the center for a star to ignite. Planets form further outwards in the disk. During its life and its final stages, the star influences the cloud from which it formed, completing the cycle. However, little is known about that process.

To investigate this, Floris van der Tak will use data from NASA’s balloon telescope GUSTO, which circled over Antarctica last January and February at an altitude of 36 km. Unhindered by Earth’s atmosphere, its infrared cameras—developed by SRON—recorded the presence of carbon and nitrogen in numerous space clouds within the Milky Way and our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

‘Carbon and nitrogen are ideal tracers to study the interaction between young stars and their birth clouds,’ says Van der Tak. ‘Their presence reveals the temperature, density and ionization within the cloud. So not only do we see the birth process of the star, but we also get a picture of what this does to the cloud.’ A young star affects its parent cloud through radiation and stellar wind. The star’s UV radiation breaks down molecules and ionizes atoms in the cloud. The stellar wind collides with the cloud, creating shock waves. Van der Tak: “GUSTO is very suitable to see the difference between these because it can measure small velocity differences in the gas clouds, which would indicate shock waves.’

NWO’s Open Competition ENW-M1 grant covers a PhD student for four years.