Image Details
Caption: Figure 7.
On this plot of mass vs. age, the dotted vectors show how much the mass of each YSO should increase given the current mass accretion rate in 5 Myr. Since mass accretion is variable, the accretion rate at the time of our measurement may not be representative of the accretion rate throughout that star’s evolution. At the median mass accretion rate, ∼0.05 M⊙ is expected to be gained in 5 Myr. Eruptive events either do not add enough mass or are too rare to significantly contribute to the growth of most stars, suggesting that young stars are nearly at their final mass by time they are visible in the near-IR.
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.