event
Friday 06 Dec 2013: Is star formation universal? (FRIDAY, 11am)
Dr Simon Goodwin - University of Sheffield
Physics, 4th floor 11:00-12:00
I will discuss if star formation can be thought to be the same everywhere. In particular I will look at Cyg OB2 and Westerlund 1 - both the same mass and age, but one a loose association, the other a dense cluster. We have examined the structure of Cyg OB2 and the distribution of its massive stars, and we conclude that Cyg OB2 has always been low-density and its massive stars have always been widely distributed. This means that the massive stars in Cyg OB2 could not have formed by competitive accretion in a cluster, and so either clustered star formation and competitive accretion are wrong, or star formation is very different in different places.
