Patel Nimesh A, Curiel Salvador, Sridharan T K, Zhang Qizhou, Hunter Todd R, Ho Paul T P, Torrelles José M, Moran James M, Gómez José F, Anglada Guillem
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS78, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Nature. 2005 Sep 1;437(7055):109-11. doi: 10.1038/nature04011.
The processes leading to the birth of low-mass stars such as our Sun have been well studied, but the formation of high-mass (over eight times the Sun's mass, M(o)) stars remains poorly understood. Recent studies suggest that high-mass stars may form through accretion of material from a circumstellar disk, in essentially the same way as low-mass stars form, rather than through the merging of several low-mass stars. There is as yet, however, no conclusive evidence. Here we report the presence of a flattened disk-like structure around a massive 15M(o) protostar in the Cepheus A region, based on observations of continuum emission from the dust and line emission from the molecular gas. The disk has a radius of about 330 astronomical units (Au) and a mass of 1 to 8 M(o). It is oriented perpendicular to, and spatially coincident with, the central embedded powerful bipolar radio jet, just as is the case with low-mass stars, from which we conclude that high-mass stars can form through accretion.
导致像我们太阳这样的低质量恒星诞生的过程已得到充分研究，但高质量（超过太阳质量八倍，即M⊙）恒星的形成仍知之甚少。最近的研究表明，高质量恒星可能通过吸积来自星周盘的物质形成，本质上与低质量恒星的形成方式相同，而非通过几颗低质量恒星的合并。然而，目前尚无确凿证据。在此，基于对尘埃连续辐射和分子气体谱线辐射的观测，我们报告在仙王座A区域一颗15M⊙的大质量原恒星周围存在一个扁平的盘状结构。该盘半径约为330天文单位（AU），质量为1至8M⊙。它与中心嵌入的强大双极射电喷流垂直且在空间上重合，就像低质量恒星的情况一样，由此我们得出高质量恒星可以通过吸积形成的结论。
