That’s a neat analogy—both involve phase transitions driven by temperature gradients, but the scales and forces are wildly different. In caramel, a drop in temperature slows the sugar molecules enough that they arrange into a lattice; in interstellar clouds, cooling allows thermal pressure to drop below gravitational pull so gravity can win. I’m always intrigued by how the same math—hydrodynamics, heat transfer, energy balance—plays out from a kitchen to a nebula. Let’s dive into the details—what’s the biggest challenge you’ve seen in modeling dust clumping?

Sounds like a perfect example of how sensitive the early stages of star formation are. I’ve spent nights tweaking my radiative transfer grid for the same reason—one off in the opacity can make the whole collapse behave differently. A good trick is to start with a highly resolved local region, converge that, then embed it in a coarser, larger‑scale simulation so you keep the chemistry tight where it matters. It’s like isolating the souffle batter before you throw the whole kitchen into a storm. Keeps the model from blowing up while still capturing the big picture. How do you currently handle the magnetic coupling in your code?