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12 years ago
Explain why stars form only in molecular clouds, the coldest, densest parts of the interstellar medium.
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11 years ago
A cloud collapses and ultimately forms stars when gravity overcomes thermal pressure. The latter depends both on the density and temperature of the cloud. The high densities in molecular clouds means that the gravitational forces are relatively strong but the pressure is no higher than elsewhere because the temperatures are low.
Biology!
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