69th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 20, 2016 — November 22, 2016)

V0045: A Terrestrial Stellarium: Replicating the Birth of Stars in the Laboratory

Authors
  • Keith Loebner, Stanford University
  • Victor Miller, Stanford University
  • Thomas Underwood, Stanford University
  • Mark Cappelli, Stanford University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2016.GFM.V0045

Oftentimes it is thought that astrophysical phenomena are remote, both physically and conceptually, from everyday experience. This may be only half-true; much of the (magneto)fluid dynamics taking place across the universe, from swirling disks of ionized gas to colliding interstellar clouds, is indeed many light years away from us on Earth. However, striving to understand the (literally) cosmic forces that guide the mechanics of our world is at the core of what makes us human. Our efforts to take that which is astronomically remote, and to scale it into a time and space that is compehensible (and visible!) to scientists in the laboratory is one small, token contribution to that ideal.

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