Astronomy
Gravitational Collapse in Star-Forming Regions
Quick fact
Giant molecular clouds, the birthplaces of stars, can collapse to form hundreds or thousands of stars at once, with the process taking as little as a few hundred thousand years for the smallest stars.
Why this is interesting
A cloud of gas ten light-years across, colder than deep space, begins to fall inward. Within a few million years, a star ignites. How does a thin wisp of gas become the Sun, with nothing but gravity as the driving force?