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Adventures in Stellar Evolution

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The Complex Lives of Star Clusters

Part of the book series: Astronomers' Universe ((ASTRONOM))

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Abstract

Stars are born cold and dark out of vast amounts of gas and dust that collect in oppressive clouds called nebulae. Approximately 200 years ago, Immanuel Kant and Pierre Simon Laplace independently reached the same conclusions about what happens next: gravity grabs the cloud and causes it to collapse into a spinning disc. At its heart most of the material collects into a star, while around it a wide but thin, low mass disc of gas and dust forms the womb in which the planets coalesce.

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Stevenson, D. (2015). Adventures in Stellar Evolution. In: The Complex Lives of Star Clusters. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14234-0_2

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