The youngest massive star clusters in the SMC as clues to star formation in the early Universe

Details The youngest massive star clusters in the SMC as clues to star formation in the early Universe The youngest massive star clusters in the SMC as clues to star formation in the early Universe

Jul 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999hst..prop.8246h&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #8246

Computer Science

Hst Proposal Id #8246 Hot Stars

Scientific paper

High resolution imaging with WFPC2 has recently allowed us to resolve two very tight clusters of newly born massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud {N81, N88A; STScI Press Release 25-98, 23 July 1998}. These are the youngest massive stars accessible to direct observations at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths. Situated in an extremely rare category of h2 regions in the Magellanic Clouds {only 5 rac to 10 rac across and of very high excitation}, these stars should rank among the hottest ones in these galaxies. Although color- magnitude diagrams yield valuable information, follow-up STIS observations of so identified hot star candidates are imperative for obtaining spectral types and stellar parameters and establishing the H-R diagrams. Comparison with models will allow us to derive the evolutionary state of the stars and clarify the nature of the most intriguing ones. In particular, one of the stars is a Wolf-Rayet candidate, which is an extremely rare kind of massive star in the metal-poor SMC. If confirmed by the planned spectroscopy, this finding will be important for stellar evolutionary models. Since the SMC is the most metal-poor galaxy observable with very high angular resolution, the proposed observations will provide valuable templates for studying star formation in the very distant metal-poor galaxies which populate the early Universe.

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