The well known Jeans instability is studied for a viscoelastic, gravitational fluid using generalized hydrodynamic equations of motions. It is found that the threshold for the onset of instability appears at higher wavelengths in a viscoelastic medium. Elastic effects playing a role similar to thermal pressure are found to lower the growth rate of the gravitational instability. Such features may manifest themselves in matter constituting dense astrophysical objects.
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