{"id":137194,"date":"2025-10-22T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T00:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137194\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T00:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T00:56:09","slug":"alma-captures-spiral-shaped-gas-streamer-guided-by-magnetic-fields-in-star-forming-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137194\/","title":{"rendered":"ALMA Captures Spiral-Shaped Gas Streamer Guided by Magnetic Fields in Star-Forming Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>This streamer of gas is channeling matter from the surrounding cloud of a star-forming region in Perseus directly onto a newborn binary star system called SVS 13A.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14299e-SVS-13A.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-106931\" class=\"wp-image-106931 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image_14299-SVS-13A.jpg\" alt=\"An artist\u2019s impression of the SVS 13A system. Image credit: NSF \/ AUI \/ NSF\u2019s NRAO \/ P.Vosteen.\" width=\"580\" height=\"348\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-106931\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s impression of the SVS 13A system. Image credit: NSF \/ AUI \/ NSF\u2019s NRAO \/ P.Vosteen.<\/p>\n<p>Stars are born from clouds of gas and dust, but recent observations show star birth is far more dynamic than previously thought.<\/p>\n<p>The new data from the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA) captured both the dust and molecules swirling around the SVS 13A system, revealing that magnetic fields don\u2019t just thread through these stellar nurseries \u2014 they actively steer the flow of material, providing a preferred route for gas to travel onto the disk where new stars and planets form.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImagine a garden hose, but instead of water it\u2019s smoothly delivering star-building material through a winding path carved by invisible forces,\u201d said Dr. Paulo Cortes, an astronomer at NSF\u2019s National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Joint ALMA Observatory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the picture emerging from the ALMA observations: a channel of gas, dubbed a sub-Alfv\u00e9nic streamer, regulated by spiral magnetic field lines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese new data give us a new window into star formation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis streamer shows how magnetic fields can regulate star formation by shaping the infall of material, like a dedicated highway for the cars to move along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ALMA images and data reveal two spiral arms of dust encircling the stars, with a streamer of gas that closely follows the same path.<\/p>\n<p>This remarkable alignment suggests gas in the streamer moves slowly compared to what was previously believed, supporting the idea of a magnetized channel rather than a turbulently collapsing cloud.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that such a streamer exists and connects the cloud to the disk \u2014 feeding material in a controlled way \u2014 means that gravity and magnetism both play crucial roles in building stars and shaping the planets that may eventually form around them.<\/p>\n<p>This pioneering result marks the first time astronomers have directly mapped both the streamer and its guided magnetic field in a single observation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sub-Alfv\u00e9nic streamer suggests a new role for the magnetic field when gravity dominates, where it acts as a \u2018guide\u2019 facilitating the infalling of material from the envelope onto the disk,\u201d the astronomers said.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2041-8213\/ae0c04\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">findings<\/a> appear this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n<p>_____<\/p>\n<p>P.C. Cort\u00e9s et al. 2025. First Results from ALPPS: A Sub-Alfv\u00e9nic Streamer in SVS 13A. ApJL 992, L31; doi: 10.3847\/2041-8213\/ae0c04<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This streamer of gas is channeling matter from the surrounding cloud of a star-forming region in Perseus directly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[17155,19915,18,9949,19,17,16246,77527,133,11186,18406,81537,81538],"class_list":{"0":"post-137194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-alma","9":"tag-binary-star","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-gas","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-magnetic-field","15":"tag-protostar","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-star","18":"tag-star-formation","19":"tag-sub-alfvenic-streamer","20":"tag-svs-13a"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}