High mass stars with eight or more solar masses are mysterious. Despite the fact that they are observed more easily than their counterparts with a lower mass, astrophysicists have problems explaining how they become so massive. The problem is that, although they accrape and become more massive, they also shed the mass.
Stars form in clouds of predominantly hydrogen, which are called huge molecular clouds. Thousands or even millions of stars can form in a single massive cloud. As a protostar, it forms material from the cloud into a swirling acceleration disc around itself. The young sternal crets are important from this hard drive.
At the same time, the young star will also be part of its mass by outstanding winds and bipolar drains, which are referred to as Protostellar jets.
The illustration of this artist shows a young protostar in a gas cloud. A swirling accretion disk surrounds the star and protostellar jets are emitted from every pole. Photo credits: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. Injured (SSC)
The mighty jets that come from young stars carry the fair away from the stars and can also generate cavities in the surrounding material. Both phenomenon can limit the growth of a star. Some theories show that this should limit the mass of the stars to 20 to 40 solar masses, but astronomers routinely observe stars that are much more massive than this. The list of the most solid stars contains many stars between 100 and 200 solar masses, and the most solid star, the R136A1, is almost 300 solar masses.
This problem is one of the most active problems in astrophysics. How are massive stars so massive? The question becomes more difficult because it is difficult to observe with high mass stars during the shape. The process is hidden in opaque gas clouds and occurs very quickly. Much of what astrophysicists know about high-mass stars comes from simulations and indirect evidence.
New research results in the field of scientific progress can have the answer. It is entitled “Massive Extended Streamers Feed High Mass Young Stars”, and the main author is Fernando Olguin. Olguin is from the Center for Gravitational Physics at Kyoto University.
Olguin and his colleagues used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a low -size starry area with the name G336 ALMA1 about 10,100 light years away. They found streamers who fed the gas from the surrounding clouds directly onto a protostar without an accretion disc.
“Our work seems to show that these structures are fed by streamers who are gass flows that bring matter from dandruff that are larger than a thousand astronomical units and are essentially acting as massive gas highways,” said the senior author Olguin.
The young star is fed by a streamer, possibly by two. They are like spiral arms that feed the gas from the surrounding region to the region in which the star forms. One of the streamers is more connected to the central area in which the star forms. Measurements of the streamer suggest that it supplies the still growing star so much gas that it deletes the feedback effects that otherwise can limit the mass accetion of the star.
These numbers show some of the Alma observations of G336 ALMA1. The left field shows the 1.3 mm continuum that shows the movement of cold gas and dust. The blue and red lines represent the blue and red -released streams. The right board shows the emission of hot methanol. It shows a clear connection between the blue streamer and the young Star Alma1. Photo credits: Olguin et al. 2025. Sciadv
These streamers showed earlier observations, but they were not high enough to clearly observe the central region. These observations indicated that the streamers fed a hard drive. However, these newer Alma observations show that there is no or perhaps only an extremely limited hard drive.
“We found streamers who feed a hard drive at this time, but to our surprise there is either no hard drive or it is extremely small,” says Olguin.
This scheme from research shows the various kinematic components and river scenarios for Protostar ALMA1. Green arrows represent drainage, blue and red represent the gas flows, and the red to blue arrow shows a rotation. Photo credits: Olguin et al. 2025. Sciadv
If young stars can collect mass of streamers without the need for a moderate hard drive, it can explain how stars become so massive. You essentially avoid the restriction of your growth.
“The case of G336 ALMA1 shows that Streamer can play an important role in feeding protostars with a high mass,” the researchers explain in their work. “To get the gas on, the density around the source must be high enough to extinguish the feedback from the young star, or the dynamics worn by the streamers must be high enough to overcome the feedback without a pane.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_thtwngvta
Researchers have previously discovered streamers who fed stars, but only stars with a low mass. In a 2022 paper, a streamer found that surrounded a young star. “The streamer delivers more than enough mass to maintain its protostellary accretion rate,” wrote these researchers.
But these streamers are much more massive, as are the Star Alma1.
“We appreciate masses between 0.3 and 0.6 solar masses for every inner streamer,” the authors write. “These masses and the resulting incident rates are a magnitude or higher than those in streamers that feed stars with a low mass.”
There could still be a small acceleration disc around the star, and it could be the last link in the chain of matter that feeds the star. But the mass of the disc is comparable or lower than the mass of the streamers.
“It is therefore the large mass of the reservoir in large standards and the streamers on small standards that have made the formation and continuous feeding of the young high mass star in the center of ALMA1,” the researchers conclude.
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