Protostar
Early stage in the process of star formation / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Protostar (disambiguation).
A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. It is the earliest phase in the process of stellar evolution.[1] For a low-mass star (i.e. that of the Sun or lower), it lasts about 500,000 years.[2] The phase begins when a molecular cloud fragment first collapses under the force of self-gravity and an opaque, pressure-supported core forms inside the collapsing fragment. It ends when the infalling gas is depleted, leaving a pre-main-sequence star, which contracts to later become a main-sequence star at the onset of hydrogen fusion producing helium.