Herschel, Spitzer and Magellan infrared observations of the complex star forming region RCW121 (IRAS17149-3916)

TAPIA, M., PERSI, P., ROTH, M., ELIA, D., MOLINARI, S., SALDAÑO, H. P., GÓMEZ, M.

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2014 vol. 437 p. 606 - 606

e present new deep near-infrared broad- and narrow-band imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy of the star formation region RCW 121 (IRAS 17149-3916) which we analyse in combination with Herschel (70, 160, 250, 350 and 500 μm) and Spitzer (3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8 microns) images. The near-infrared photometry reveals the presence of a stellar cluster of approximate size of 92 arcsec which is composed of at least 264 members, approximately 25 per cent of these showing excess emission at lambda > 2.0 micron, indicative of circumstellar discs. Isochrones corresponding to ages 0.5-1.0 Myr and A_V = 7.8 fit well the position of a large fraction of likely cluster members in the Ks versus H - Ks diagram. We find three massive star-forming cores located in the boundaries of an expanding H II region ionized by a central O-type star. From their far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) we derive masses and temperatures of the dense cores. When these young stellar objects (YSOs) have