Fragments falling onto the Sun

(Phys.org) —Stars form as gravity coalesces the gas and dust in an interstellar cloud until the material develops clumps dense enough to become stars. Even after a star begins to burn its nuclear fuel it continues to grow in mass as it accumulates matter from its natal cloud - and also from a surrounding ring of circumstellar material that develops. (This disk can subsequently produce planets.) Mass accretion from the circumstellar disk onto the stellar surface is expected to play an important role in star formation, especially in its later stages, but the process is very difficult to measure on other stars, leaving scientists uncertain about the many details.

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