Stars are created in clouds of gas and dust, and early stars, or
protostars, collect this gas with their gravitational pull.
Baby stars collect the gas with their gravitational pull, however, some of the material is ejected by the
protostars. This ejected material forms a stellar birth cry which provides clues to understand the process of mass accumulation.
Truly massive
protostars also end their lives in a supernova outburst, but their heavier cores collapse even further to create a black hole, an ultra-compact mass from which not even light can escape.
Its presence shields interstellar molecules from high-energy radiation and enables
protostars to radiate away excess energy.
The universe is abundant with
protostars, stars that are about to be born.
Newly born stars, or
protostars, acquire a swirling disc of material pulled in by its gravity.
The Orion Nebula is home to hundreds of young stars and even younger
protostars known as proplyds.
Much is also the case for stars that need certain threshold energies to ignite fusion (in
protostars) yet not so much energy as to explode violently (in supernovae).
The molecular cloud itself contains a number of previously known protoclusters and isolated
protostars and the first full census of its star formation activity was done by Hatchell et al.