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Gravity is not the only actor on the stage of star formation however. Because the cloud is turbulent right from the start, every collapsing cloudlet begins with some rotation or spin. As anyone who has watched Olympic figure skating can attest, spinning objects change their speed when they change their size. When a spinning figure skater pulls her arms inwards she spins faster. If she extends her arms she spins slower. The same process happens to a collapsing cloudlet, but instead of changing its size by half like a human skater, the cloudlet reduces its size by a factor of a million or more. The collapse and "spin-up" of the cloudlet has important effects on star and planet formation
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