Astrophysics (Index) | About |
An evaporating gas globule (EGG) is a small, dense volume of dust and gas (HI region or molecular cloud) on the order of 100 AU diameter, denser than its surroundings. Its density slows its photoevaporation from nearby UV sources such as early stars, and shields a portion of itself and the surrounding cloud from the UV, thus allowing the dense, shielded portion to remain cool and potentially collapse into a protostar. This is seemingly a mechanism for star formation in a region that has already formed of some UV-producing stars.