Electromagnetic instability of a homogeneous interstellar medium

The electromagnetic instability of an interstellar medium with an arbitrary velocity distribution is examined over the large scale lengths typical of gas-dust clouds without a significant magnetic field. It is shown that over a moderate time scale (months and years) these instabilities can develop and that the requirement of stability is satisfied by a narrow class of distributions that are close to spherical. __________ Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 289–297 (May 2006).