Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2021

46 JULY-AUGUST 2021 ASTRO PUBLISHING from their surrounding clouds of gas and dust in a relatively orderly man- ner. The incoming material forms a disk orbiting the young star and that disk feeds the star at a pace it can di- gest. Condensations of material within the disk form planets that will remain after the star’s growth process is complete. The disks are com- monly seen around young low-mass stars, but have not been found around much more massive stars in their forming stages. Astronomers questioned whether the process for the larger stars is simply a scaled-up version of that for the smaller ones. “Our ALMA observa- tions now provide compelling evidence that the answer is no,” said Ciriaco Goddi, of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. ALMA shows massive young stars forming in “chaotic mess” A rtist’s conception illustrates process seen in forming stars much more massive than the Sun. At top left, material is being drawn into the young star through an orbiting disk which generates a fast-moving jet of material outward. At top right, material begins coming in from another direc- tion, and at bottom left, begins deforming the original disk until, at bottom right, the disk orienta- tion − and the jet orientation − have changed. [Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF] A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millime- ter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has taken a big step toward answering a longstanding question — do stars much more massive than the Sun form in the same way as their smaller siblings? Young, still- forming stars similar in mass to the Sun are observed gaining material by ALMA Observatory - Nicolás Lira