Question

a.) Say we observe two interstellar clouds. One is a molecular hydrogen cloud with a temperature of 15 K and n = 1012 m−3, the other is entirely made up of neutral atomic hydrogen whose temperature 120 K and n = 107 m−3.

i) Calculate the Jeans mass and radius for each cloud?

ii) Comment on whether you expect each cloud collapse. If so, what is the timescale for the collapse?

Answer 1