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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A new supercomputer simulation of star formation
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:04
	Publish Date:		2016-08-12 19:00:00
	Description:		A new supercomputer simulation is helping scientists visualize the evolution of stars. The NASA-funded project is based on code written by astrophysicist Richard Klein of the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. According to Klein, this simulation is one step towards a comprehensive theory of star formation, which begins when a cloud of interstellar gas collapses under gravity. "So we start with these turbulent magnetized clouds. Follow the cloud for up to a million years of evolution, all the way to the point where stars can form in clusters." Klein turns to observations of real stars to check the results. "We begin to calculate what the properties of those stellar clusters are in great detail and then compare the properties that we get from the large scale simulations with what the observations are actually telling us." The team is currently working towards even larger-scale simulations.
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