Question

In class, we learned about the Jeans mass, which depends on the temperature and density of a cloud. Clouds that are more massive than the Jeans mass will collapse under their own weight and start forming stars.

Consider molecular clouds with temperature 10 K and density 10⁶ particles / cm³. Calculate the Jeans mass. Report your answer in units of solar masses.

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Answer 1

The Jeans mass is given by,

Here is the temperature

is the Boltzman constant

is the gravitational constant

is the mass of Hydrogen atom

is the particle density

  

Now we know one solar mass is,

So, here, the Jeans mass is,

This is the answer