Researchers Test the Physics of Star Formation in the Lab

A photo of the MRI apparatus superimposed on the L1551 molecular cloud (photo credit: John Bally and David Devine, NOAO). The L1551 cloud is a star forming region which is home to HH30 shown in another superimposed image by Hubble Space Telescope (photo credit: Chris Burrows, STScI, the WFPC2 Science Team and NASA). In the image, an accretion disk and jet in a young star are shown: the jet (in green) is perpendicular to the accretion disk, seen edge-on (and appearing on the low half of the image, as a dark region between two bright lobes). The MRI apparatus consists of six rotatable components driven independently by four computer-controlled motors. A zoomed-in photo shows two pairs of lasers (one green and one red) entering rotating water from underneath. The two lasers simultaneously measure two fluctuating velocity components to determine angular momentum transport.