Touching the Stars: Using High-resolution 3D Printing to Visualize Stellar Nurseries

Owing to their intricate variable density architecture, and as a principal site of star formation, molecular clouds represent one of the most functionally significant, yet least understood features of our universe. To unravel the intrinsic structural complexity of molecular clouds, here we leverage the power of high-resolution bitmap-based three-dimensional (3D) printing, which provides the opportunity to visualize astrophysical structures in a way that uniquely taps into the human brain's ability to recognize patterns suppressed in 2D representations. Using a new suite of nine simulations, each representing different physical extremes in the turbulent interstellar medium, as our source data, our workflow permits the unambiguous visualization of features in the 3D-printed models, such as quasi-planar structures, that are frequently obscured in traditional renderings and animations. Our bitmap-based 3D printing approach thus faithfully reproduces the subtle density gradient distribution within molecular clouds in a tangible, intuitive, and visually stunning manner. While laying the groundwork for the intuitive analysis of other structurally complex astronomical data sets, our 3D-printed models also serve as valuable tools in educational and public outreach endeavors.