An international team led by astronomers at the University of Sydney has uncovered the clearest evidence yet for the origin of an unusual class of cosmic signals. In doing so, they have identified a rare stellar system that is providing scientists with a natural laboratory to study extreme physics.

The cradles of baby stars have a wheel-and-spoke like shape, with streams of gas converging toward a dense central hub. Using 3D simulations, researchers from Kyushu University and Nagoya University found that when an external shockwave strikes a gas cloud with a pinched magnetic field, it reorganizes the cloud into radial filaments. These findings open a new window into the environments where massive stars and star clusters are born.