Stormy Protostars Can Give Birth to Multi-Star Systems

Interstellar gas and dust get in the way, plus it can take around 100,000 years for a star to form. Two models that describe the births of multiple-star systems rely on numerical simulations rather than observational evidence. One is turbulent fragmentation, which says that some type of turbulence within the core of a newly forming star causes multiple clumps of dense gas to separate at the center.