The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package astropy, which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we provide an overview of the organization of the Astropy project and summarize key features in the core package, as of the recent major release, version 2.0. We then describe the project infrastructure designed to facilitate and support development for a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages. We conclude with a future outlook of planned new features and directions for the broader Astropy Project.

We present observations of outflows in the star-forming region NGC 1333 using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA). We combined the 12 CO and 13 CO (1-0) CARMA mosaics with data from the 14-m Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO) to probe the central, most dense and active region of this protostellar cluster at scales from 5 to 7 (or 1000 AU to 0.5 pc at a distance of 235 pc). We map and identify 12 CO outflows, and along with 13 CO data we estimate their mass, momentum and energy. Within the 7 × 7 map, the 5 resolution allows for a detailed study of morphology and kinematics of outflows and outflow candidates, some of which were previously confused with other outflow emission in the region. In total, we identify 22 outflow lobes, as well as 9 dense circumstellar envelopes marked by continuum emission, of which 6 drive outflows. We calculate a total outflow mass, momentum and energy within the mapped region of 6 M , 19 M km s −1 , and 7 ×10 44 erg, respectively. Within this same region, we compare outflow kinematics with turbulence and gravitational energy, and we suggest that outflows are likely important agents for the maintenance of turbulence in this region. In the earliest stages of star formation, outflows do not yet contribute enough energy to totally disrupt the clustered region where most star formation is happening, but have the potential to do so as the protostellar sources evolve. Our results can be used to constrain outflow properties, such as outflow strength, in numerical simulations of outflow-driven turbulence in clusters.

We present the N 2 H + (J = 1 → 0) map of the Serpens South molecular cloud obtained as part of the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy). The observations cover 250 square arcminutes and fully sample structures from 3000 AU to 3 pc with a velocity resolution of 0.16 km s −1 , and they can be used to constrain the origin and evolution of molecular cloud filaments. The spatial distribution of the N 2 H + emission is characterized by long filaments that resemble those observed in the dust continuum emission by Herschel. However, the gas filaments are typically narrower such that, in some cases, two or three quasi-parallel N 2 H + filaments comprise a single observed dust continuum filament. The difference between the dust and gas filament widths casts doubt on Herschel ability to resolve the Serpens South filaments. Some molecular filaments show velocity gradients along their major axis, and two are characterized by a steep velocity gradient in the direction perpendicular to the filament axis. The observed velocity gradient along one of these filaments was previously postulated as evidence for mass infall toward the central cluster, but these kind of gradients can be interpreted as projection of large-scale turbulence.

The loss of mass from protostars, in the form of a jet or outflow, is a necessary counterpart to protostellar mass accretion. Outflow ejection events probably vary in their velocity and/or in the rate of mass loss. Such 'episodic' ejection events have been observed during the class 0 protostellar phase (the early accretion stage), and continue during the subsequent class I phase that marks the first one million years of star formation. Previously observed episodic-ejection sources were relatively isolated; however, the most common sites of star formation are clusters. Outflows link protostars with their environment and provide a viable source of the turbulence that is necessary for regulating star formation in clusters, but it is not known how an accretion-driven jet or outflow in a clustered environment manifests itself in its earliest stage. This early stage is important in establishing the initial conditions for momentum and energy transfer to the environment as the protostar and cluster evolve. Here we report that an outflow from a young, class 0 protostar, at the hub of the very active and filamentary Serpens South protostellar cluster, shows unambiguous episodic events. The (12)C(16)O (J = 2-1) emission from the protostar reveals 22 distinct features of outflow ejecta, the most recent having the highest velocity. The outflow forms bipolar lobes--one of the first detectable signs of star formation--which originate from the peak of 1-mm continuum emission. Emission from the surrounding C(18)O envelope shows kinematics consistent with rotation and an infall of material onto the protostar. The data suggest that episodic, accretion-driven outflow begins in the earliest phase of protostellar evolution, and that the outflow remains intact in a very clustered environment, probably providing efficient momentum transfer for driving turbulence.

We present observations of N 2 H + (J = 1 → 0), HCO + (J = 1 → 0), and HCN (J = 1 → 0) toward the Serpens Main molecular cloud from the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy). We mapped 150 square arcminutes of Serpens Main with an angular resolution of ∼ 7 . The gas emission is concentrated in two subclusters (the NW and SE subclusters). The SE subcluster has more prominent filamentary structures and more complicated kinematics compared to the NW subcluster. The majority of gas in the two subclusters has subsonic to sonic velocity dispersions. We applied a dendrogram technique with N 2 H + (1-0) to study the gas structures; the SE subcluster has a higher degree of hierarchy than the NW subcluster. Combining the dendrogram -2and line fitting analyses reveals two distinct relations: a flat relation between nonthermal velocity dispersion and size, and a positive correlation between variation in velocity centroids and size. The two relations imply a characteristic depth of 0.15 pc for the cloud. Furthermore, we have identified six filaments in the SE subcluster. These filaments have lengths of ∼ 0.2 pc and widths of ∼ 0.03 pc, which is smaller than a characteristic width of 0.1 pc suggested by Herschel observations. The filaments can be classified into two types based on their properties. The first type, located in the northeast of the SE subcluster, has larger velocity gradients, smaller masses, and nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios. The other type, located in the southwest of the SE subcluster, has the opposite properties. Several YSOs are formed along two filaments which have supercritical mass per unit length ratios, while filaments with nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios are not associated with YSOs, suggesting that stars are formed on gravitationally unstable filaments.formation. The target regions, NGC 1333, Barnard 1, and L1451 in Perseus, and Serpens Main and Serpens South, present a wide range of star formation activities from relatively quiescent regions to active star-forming clusters. Storm et al. (2014) (hereafter Paper I) presents a detailed description on the CLASSy project and the structures of dense gas in Barnard 1. In this paper, we present results of the Serpens Main region. We focus on the global structure of dust and gas, including the properties of dust and gas condensations, gas structures and kinematics, and filamentary structures.

We present an overview of the Large Program, “Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk),” conducted with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The ubiquitous detections of substructures, particularly rings and gaps, in protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars raise the possibility that at least some planet formation may have already started during the embedded stages of star formation. In order to address exactly how and when planet formation is initiated, the program focuses on searching for substructures in disks around 12 Class 0 and 7 Class I protostars in nearby (<200 pc) star-forming regions through 1.3 mm continuum observations at a resolution of ∼7 au (0.″04). The initial results show that the continuum emission, mostly arising from dust disks around the sample protostars, has relatively few distinctive substructures, such as rings and spirals, in marked contrast to Class II disks. The dramatic difference may suggest that substructures quickly develop in disks when the systems evolve from protostars to Class II sources, or alternatively that high optical depth of the continuum emission could obscure internal structures. Kinematic information obtained through CO isotopologue lines and other lines reveals the presence of Keplerian disks around protostars, providing us with crucial physical parameters, in particular, the dynamical mass of the central protostars. We describe the background of the eDisk program, the sample selection and their ALMA observations, and the data reduction, and we also highlight representative first-look results.

Context. The accretion history of protostars remains widely mysterious even though it represents one of the best ways to understand the protostellar collapse that leads to the formation of stars. Aims. Molecular outflows, which are easier to detect than the direct accretion onto the prostellar embryo, are here used to characterize the protostellar accretion phase in W43-MM1. Methods. The W43-MM1 protocluster host a sufficient number of protostars to statistically investigate molecular outflows in a single, homogeneous region. We used the CO(2-1) and SiO(5-4) line datacubes, taken as part of an ALMA mosaic with a 2000 AU resolution, to search for protostellar outflows, evaluate the influence that the environment has on these outflows' characteristics and put constraints on outflow variability in W43-MM1. Results. We discovered a rich cluster of 46 outflow lobes, driven by 27 protostars with masses of 1−100 M . The complex environment inside which these outflow lobes develop has a definite influence on their length, limiting the validity of using outflows' dynamical timescales as a proxy of the ejection timescale in clouds with high dynamics and varying conditions. We performed a detailed study of Position-Velocity (PV) diagrams of outflows that revealed clear events of episodic ejection. The time variability of W43-MM1 outflows is a general trend and is more generally observed than in nearby, low-to intermediate-mass star-forming regions. The typical timescale found between two ejecta, ∼500 yr, is consistent with that found in nearby protostars.Conclusions. If ejection episodicity reflects variability in the accretion process, either protostellar accretion is more variable or episodicity is easier to detect in high-mass star-forming regions than in nearby clouds. The timescale found between accretion events could be resulting from instabilities, associated with bursts of inflowing gas arising from the close dynamical environment of highmass star-forming cores.

We present new Submillimeter Array (SMA) observations of CO(2-1) outflows toward young, embedded protostars in the Perseus molecular cloud as part of the Mass Assembly of Stellar Systems and their Evolution with the SMA (MASSES) survey. For 57 Perseus protostars, we characterize the orientation of the outflow angles and compare them with the orientation of the local filaments as derived from Herschel observations. We find that the relative angles between outflows and filaments are inconsistent with purely parallel or purely perpendicular distributions. Instead, the observed distribution of outflow-filament angles are more consistent with either randomly aligned angles or a mix of projected parallel and perpendicular angles. A mix of parallel and perpendicular angles requires perpendicular alignment to be more common by a factor of ∼3. Our results show that the observed distributions probably hold regardless of the protostar's multiplicity, age, or the host core's opacity. These observations indicate that the angular momentum axis of a protostar may be independent of the large-scale structure. We discuss the significance of independent protostellar rotation axes in the general picture of filament-based star formation.