New study finds that stars determine their own masses

In a new study, a team of researchers from universities across the country discovered that star formation is self-regulatory, meaning stars themselves set their own masses as they are formed. This helps explain why stars in different environments still have similar masses. According to the report, the new finding may enable researchers to better understand star formation within our own Milky Way and other galaxies.

The study was published on July 26 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The research team included scientists from Northwestern, University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Carnegie Observatories, Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology. Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, a co-author of the study, is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern and a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA).

“Understanding the stellar initial mass function is such an important problem because it impacts astrophysics across the board — from nearby planets to distant galaxies,” said Faucher-Giguère. “This is because stars have relatively simple DNA. If you know the mass of a star, then you know most things about the star: how much light it emits, how long it will live and what will happen to it when it dies. The distribution of stellar masses is thus critical for whether planets that orbit stars can potentially sustain life, as well as what distant galaxies look like.”

Learn more about the study in Northwestern Now’s article, “Stars determine their own masses.”