What is the Estimated Local Star Formation Rate and How Accurate is it?

[randa177]

What is the estimated value of the local star formation rate (SFR) and how accurately do we know this number?

 

[Garth]

The crudest of estimates divides the number of stars in the galaxy, OOM 10¹¹, by the OOM age of the galaxy, 10¹⁰ years, and concludes that roughly on average 10 stars per year are formed in the whole galaxy.

This, of course, does not take into account glactic history, which include star burst eras, or the local conditions, which may vary widely from ancient dust free globular star clusters, where there is virtually no star formation, to Giant Molecular Clouds such as the Orion nebula, where stars are observed today in the process of formation.

Garth

 

[randa177]

what is OOM?

 

[mgb_phys]

Order Of Magnitude - also known as WAG (wild ass guess)

The sun is in a pretty quiet region - star formation is normally associated with hydrogen clouds.
You can estimate SFR from either H-balmer spectra from all the newly ionized hydrogen or from Radio obs of star forming clouds.

 

[Garth]

what is OOM?

Order Of Magnitude; a crude estimate in the 'ball park' as they say to within a factor of ten.

Garth
Edit: mgb_phys beat me to it!

Garth

 

[randa177]

Thank you very much