Star Formation

Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity to form protostars, eventually igniting nuclear fusion and becoming main-sequence stars. It is not a passive condensation but an active, feedback-driven process: young stars emit jets and winds that disrupt their parental clouds, while radiation pressure and ionization sculpt the surrounding medium. The transition from cloud to star is governed by a competition between gravity, turbulence, magnetic fields, and feedback — a competition whose outcome determines the initial mass function, the distribution of stellar masses that shapes galactic evolution. ALMA's observations of star-forming regions have revealed that this process is more hierarchical and dynamic than classical models predicted, with multiple stars forming in fragmented cores rather than in isolation.