An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A → shock wave occurring at the surface of a compact object or dense region that is accreting matter with a → supersonic velocity from its environment. In the case of → young stellar objects the process is believed to take place by funneled streams in the form of → accretion columns that originate in the surrounding → accretion disk and flow along the → field lines of the → protostar → magnetosphere. The gas falls supersonically onto the surface of the central body and its impact
produces strong shocks of a few million → kelvin, a phenomenon that is observable in → X-rays.

See also: → accretion; → shock.