Movies

STARFORGE: The Anvil of Creation

This is a movie of the first numerical simulation of star formation in a massive (20,000 solar mass) giant molecular cloud with individual star formation and a comprehensive treatment of feedback, from protostellar jets, radiation in 5 frequency bands, stellar winds, and core-collapse supernovae. This makes it the first full STARFORGE simulation. This particular cloud has been nicknamed the "Anvil of Creation". Learn more about STARFORGE here.

Supersonic MHD Turbuelnce

Here's what happens when you have a bunch of gas that always stays at around 10K (like in a GMC), threaded by a magnetic field, and you stir it up until it reaches Mach ~9. Intricate networks of shocks and filaments form, and it is believed that this is a key process in the formation of dense cores that go on to form stars and star clusters.

Star formation in a massive giant molecular cloud

Simulation of star formation in a giant molecular cloud, the first such simulation of a massive (200,000 solar mass) cloud with enough resolution to follow the formation of individual stars (we follow individual gas elements 1/1000 the mass of the Sun). Color visualizes the projected density of the cloud, and each point represents a single star. Paper

Formation of star clusters and stellar associations

A simulated 4 million solar mass giant molecular cloud collapses, forms stars, and disperses due to stellar feedback, leaving behind a mixture of both gravitationally-bound star clusters that will stay together, and unbound stars that will disperse within ~10 million years. Paper

Protostellar Jets

A rotating gas core collapses, forming a central star that launches bipolar jets along its poles as it feeds on gas from the surrounding disk. The jets entrain gas away from the core, limiting the amount that the star can ultimately accrete.

Star formation, disk fragmentation, and close encounters

This is a reproduction of the classic Bate, Bonnell, and Bromm 2003 star cluster formation simulation with the GIZMO code - just gravity and an idealized equation of state to model the opacity limit. Within a molecular cloud 50 times the mass of the sun, we follow the path of the most massive star that forms. The star forms, accretes from a disk until its disk fragments, and then it undergoes repeated encounters with other stars, each affecting the structure of its disk. Occasionally we encounter some lovely circumbinary disks. We no longer believe that this is a realistic picture of star formation because it lacks magnetic fields, radiation, and feedback, all of which can be game changers. But it sure is pretty!