By Robert Sanders, Media Relations

The first-ever map of all sites of star formation in a spiral galaxy
reveals the important role played in the earliest steps of star formation
by magnetic fields in the gas between stars.

The star formation areas, known as giant molecular clouds, should be
rotating rapidly, spinning up as they collapse like spinning ice skaters
drawing in their arms. Surprisingly, most are spinning between one and
10 percent of their expected rate, and many are rotating backward, said
Leo Blitz, professor of astronomy and director of the University of
California, Berkeley’s Radio Astronomy Laboratory.

"We expected to see slower rotation than classical theories of star
formation predict, but I was surprised that the effect was so very,
very strong," said Erik Rosolowsky, a graduate student at UC Berkeley.
"Magnetic field interactions within the forming clouds are the only
thing that could explain this."

This report is being presented today (Jan. 9) at the American
Astronomical Society Meeting in Washington, D.C., by Rosolowsky, Blitz,
Greg Engargiola and Richard Plambeck — all from UC Berkeley.

All of the stars in the Milky Way, including the Sun and the solar
system, plus the stars in neighboring galaxies, were made in giant
clouds of molecular hydrogen (H2) and other molecules. Like raindrops
forming in the clouds of Earth’s atmosphere, the stars form by
accreting gas from the cloud.

When the stars ignite, the released energy rips the molecular cloud
apart, revealing the newborn stars. Although rapid progress is being
made on how individual stars form inside molecular clouds, Blitz said,
little is known about how the giant molecular clouds themselves form.
An understanding of how the birthplaces of stars come about is an
important missing link in the star formation process.

The UC Berkeley astronomers reasoned that, if they could obtain a
complete census of the star-forming molecular clouds in a galaxy,
the cloud properties would illuminate the earliest phases of cloud
formation. The survey presented today is the first such census of any
spiral galaxy. A similar census in the Milky Way is impossible because
of our vantage point within the galaxy — it’s like being unable to
see an entire city while surrounded by tall buildings.

The observations targeted M33 (the Triangulum galaxy), a spiral galaxy
similar to, but smaller than the Milky Way. Like the Milky Way, M33
is one of three large spiral galaxies in the local group of galaxies,
lying more than 2.7 million light years from Earth.

Using the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) Array, a
state-of-the-art array of 10 radio telescopes operating at millimeter
wavelengths, the astronomers were able to produce a radio image of
most of the galaxy. The image shows almost all of the sites of star
formation in M33. The individual 6 meter (20 ft.) telescopes are
linked together electronically to function as a single large telescope,
which makes it possible to discern much finer detail than can be seen
with each telescope alone.

The astronomers tuned the telescope to observe emission from carbon
monoxide. Carbon monoxide is a pollutant on Earth, but is an essential
tracer for locating molecular hydrogen (H2) in space. Emission from
molecular hydrogen itself is undetectable at the cold temperatures of
the giant molecular clouds, typically about 10 degrees Celsius above
absolute zero. Astronomers turn to observations of molecules like
carbon monoxide as well as water, ammonia, alcohol, vinegar and sugars
to trace the molecular hydrogen.

The results presented today come from using the BIMA Array to map a
region of M33 about the size of the full moon. Nearly every giant
molecular cloud in M33 within the survey region was detected, and the
clouds have sizes and shapes similar to those found in our own galaxy.

Moreover, astronomers can use the array to measure how rapidly the
clouds are spinning. The spins provide important clues for unraveling
how they form. Most theories predict that giant molecular clouds form
from gas spread over a large region in the galaxy. As this slowly
spinning gas collapses into a dense cloud, the rotation speeds up.
This is the same process by which skaters increase their rate of spin
by bringing arms and legs closer to the body.

Surprisingly, the astronomers found that the clouds typically are
spinning between 10 and 100 times slower than expected from this simple
picture. Almost half of the clouds are rotating in a direction opposite
to that of the very diffuse gas from which the clouds are produced.

"The situation we’ve observed is impossible unless something is slowing
the clouds down as they form," Rosolowsky said.

"The most likely explanation is that the clouds are magnetized and tied
to the rest of the gas in the galaxy," said Blitz. Large scale magnetic
fields would slow the rotation, just as a giant rubber band tied
between a desk and an office chair would slow a person spinning in the
chair. Ultimately, enough energy can be stored in the magnetic fields
to get the clouds to spin backwards. Direct evidence will require
measurements of the magnetic fields with other specialized instruments.

Blitz said that only a tiny proportion of gas in the molecular cloud —
only one in 10 million atoms in the densest part of the cloud — is
charged and thus tied to the magnetic field. Nevertheless, that is
sufficient for the magnetic field to slow down rotation of the
molecular cloud.

"It’s the tail wagging the dog," he said.

The team plans in the future to look at the relationship between areas
of molecular clouds in M33 with areas of diffuse gas from which the
clouds form.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and by
research funds from the State of California.

# # #

Additional Resources:

Leo Blitz, (510) 643-3000, blitz@astro.berkeley.edu

Erik Rosolowsky, (510) 642-5902, eros@astro.berkeley.edu

Greg Engargiola, (510) 642-9057, greg@astro.berkeley.edu

Richard Plambeck, (510) 642-3441, plambeck@astro.berkeley.edu

Web Links to additional Information:

An image of the spiral galaxy M33, called Triangulum, with molecular
clouds superimposed is available on the Web at
http://astron.berkeley.edu/~eros/press/

IMAGE CAPTION:

Observations of the Triangulum galaxy at millimeter wavelengths reveal
the sites of star formation in the galaxy (orange). The background image
is the galaxy as it appears in visible light. The star formation sites
were discovered using the Berkeley-Illlinois-Maryland Association
Millimeter Array. These results were presented to the American
Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC on January 9, 2002.

PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Rosolowsky, UC Berkeley and Space Telescope Science
Institute.