Astronomy › Section N · Gas and dust between the stars › Topic N.1
The interstellar medium and its gas
The space between the stars is not empty. It holds a thin, restless mixture of gas and dust, from clouds colder than 20 K to bubbles hotter than a million kelvin, and it is the raw material from which every new star is made.
In this topic
- What lies between the stars
- Thin but enormous
- Worked example: the mass of a molecular cloud
- Five kinds of interstellar gas
- H II regions: gas lit by hot stars
- Seeing cold gas against starlight
- The 21-cm line
- Worked example: the energy of a 21-cm photon
- Million-degree gas
- Molecular clouds
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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