Studies of Dust and Gas in Star Formation

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on determining the structure of dense cores in molecular clouds where young stars form. The research involves analyzing far-infrared and submillimeter images to understand the density distribution and temperature characteristics of these cores, which have temperatures between 10 K and 20 K. The fellow will work with the COREFIT program developed at JPL to analyze existing and forthcoming core images, along with molecular line maps to determine core structure and evolution. The research aims to accurately measure core mass function and compare it to the stellar initial mass function to understand the transformation process from dense cores to stars.