Our Own Starburst

Author(s)
Joao Alves, Nicole Homeier
Abstract

In this article we present the first results from a near-infrared

campaign to characterize our Galaxy's own starburst event, W49A, a

prodigious factory of massive stars at a distance of about 12 kpc and

concealed from observations at visible wavelengths by more than 25

magnitudes of intervening dust extinction. Our results so far reveal the

presence of previously unknown massive stellar clusters containing more

than 100 OB stars, some as massive as 120 M⊙, most still embedded

in their parental molecular cloud and with ages as young as 104-5 yr.

We argue that this ongoing starburst appears to have been multi-seeded

instead of resulting from a coherent trigger.

Organisation(s)
Department of Astrophysics
External organisation(s)
European Southern Observatory (Germany), Johns Hopkins University
Journal
The Messenger
Volume
114
Pages
35-38
ISSN
0722-6691
Publication date
12-2003
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/our-own-starburst(09f7a1b0-d73c-4aca-ae53-b0d09d7cd536).html