Astronomy and Astrophysics Seminars

Bok Globules: simple sites of low mass star formation in our Galaxy

by Dr. Maheswar Gopinathan (Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital)

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at Colaba Campus ( AG66 )
Description
Bok globules are excellent objects to study the earliest processes of star
formation. They are small in diameter (0.1 - 2 pc), simple in structure, and are relatively isolated molecular clouds with masses of 2 - 100 Msun. Most of them could be located closer to the Sun (< 500 pc). Low-mass star formation was found to be a common phenomenon in Bok globules. However, their distances are highly uncertain. I will mainly focus on the methods used to measure distances to these objects and also on tracing magnetic field geometry of Bok Globules to study the influence of field geometry on other properties like globules structure, outflow direction from protostars embedded inside the globule, etc.