It has been suggested that Jeans mass be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The Jeans instability occurs when internal pressure is no longer strong enough to prevent gravitational collapse of a region filled with matter. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... The British physicist Sir James Jeans considered the process of gravitional collapse within a gaseous cloud. ... Pressure (symbol: p) is the force per unit area applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular to that surface. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

M_{( < r)} is the enclosed mass, p is the pressure, G is the gravitational constant, r is the radius of the region According to the law of universal gravitation, the attractive force between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. ...

Jeans instability occurs once the enclosed matter exceeds the Jeans mass or the region grows beyond the Jeans length. If the gravitational instability is governed by waves of type , a value of gamma The British physicist Sir James Jeans considered the process of gravitional collapse within a gaseous cloud. ... The Jeans Length is the oscillation wavelength below which stable oscillations rather than gravitational collapse will occur. ...

represents an exponentially growing instability. λ_J is the Jeans length and is the mass density. The time scale for collapse is given by The Jeans Length is the oscillation wavelength below which stable oscillations rather than gravitational collapse will occur. ...

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The Jeans instability is of central importance in the process of star formation in giant molecular clouds. Star formation is the process by which gas in molecular clouds change into the ball of plasma we call a star. ... A Molecular cloud is a type of interstellar cloud whose density and size permits the formation of molecular hydrogen, H2. ...

References

Longair, Malcolm S., "Galaxy Formation" 1998.