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Photo credit: NASA

A protostar is a large mass that forms by contraction out of the gas of a giant molecular cloud in the interstellar medium. The protostellar phase is an early stage in the process of star formation. For a one solar-mass star it lasts about 100,000 years. It starts with a core of increased density in a molecular cloud and ends with the formation of a T Tauri star, which then develops into a main sequence star. This is heralded by the T Tauri wind, a type of super solar wind that marks the change from the star accreting mass into radiating energy.

Observations have revealed that giant molecular clouds are approximately in a state of virial equilibrium&mdash;on the whole, the gravitational binding energy of the cloud is balanced by the thermal pressure of the cloud's constituent molecules and dust particles. Although thermal pressure is likely the dominant effect in counteracting gravitational collapse of protostellar cores, magnetic pressure, turbulence and rotation can also play a role (Larson, 2003). Any disturbance to the cloud may upset its state of equilibrium. Examples of disturbances are shock waves from supernovae; spiral density waves within galaxies and the close approach or collision of another cloud. If the disturbance is sufficiently large, it may lead to gravitational instability and subsequent collapse of a particular region of the cloud.

The British physicist Sir James Jeans considered the above phenomenon in detail. He was able to show that, under appropriate conditions, a cloud, or part of one, would start to contract very swiftly as described above. He derived a formula for calculating the mass and size that a cloud would have to reach as a function of its density and temperature before gravitational contraction would begin. This critical mass is known as the Jeans mass. The existence of 'protostars' was first proposed and postulated by Soviet-Armenian scientist, Viktor Ambartsumian.

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