Uncovering the Seeds of Star Clusters across the Galaxy

Before our Sun was formed, other stars created the heavy elements that make up our planet and are important for the chemistry of life. The investigators will study how this process varies in different parts of our galaxy in order to better understand our cosmic origin. They will use data from a survey of star forming regions in our galaxy obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope.

This survey, called ALMAGAL, gives us a better view of how stars are born across our Galaxy. The investigator will expand the reach of this scientific investigation by developing an educational tour entitled Zooming in on Star Formation across the Galaxy and by using the web-based World Wide Telescope (WWT). Incorporating these new data into WWT ensures broad, long-lasting access to the community, and educators can easily incorporate these items into lesson plans.

Most stars in the Universe formed in a clustered environment. However, lack of spatial resolution has limited our ability to observe the individual star-forming cores within young star clusters. Understanding the process by which dense proto-clusters fragment into star-forming cores and the role that Galactic environment and evolutionary stages plays is of utmost importance, The investigators seek to develop a predictive theory of star formation that can be applied throughout the cosmos.

The ALMAGAL survey will reveal cloud fragmentation on core scales (0.01 pc) across the Galaxy. The ALMAGAL survey, which combines the high angular resolution (1000 AU or better) and large sample size (more than 1000 dense clumps) required to understand proto-cluster fragmentation across Galactic environment and evolutionary stage. The investigator will use this unprecedented sample to measure whether the star formation process varies as a function of Galactic environment or evolutionary stage.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.