LMC N79 (or LHα 120-N79) is an emission nebula in the

Large Magellanic Cloud The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around , the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy, Sagittarius Dwarf ...

. The nebula is part of the catalog of

H-alpha Hydrogen-alpha, typically shortened to H-alpha or Hα, is a deep-red visible spectral line of the hydrogen atom with a wavelength of 656.28 nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum. It is the first spectral line in the Balmer series and is em ...

stars and nebulae by Karl G. Henize, published in 1956. It is composed of the smaller nebulae N79A to N79E From a CO survey it was however seen that the nebula is larger and contains N79-S, N79-W and N79-E. These nebulae were described by Henize with other names, with N79-S being the original N79 nebula, N79-W being N77 and N79-E being N83.

Super star cluster

The central nebula N79-S contains the

super star cluster A super star cluster (SSC) is a very massive young open cluster that is thought to be the precursor of a globular cluster. These clusters called "super" because they are relatively more luminous and contain more mass than other young star clusters ...

(SSC) H72.97-69.39, also called HSO BMHERICC J072.9711-69.3911. This SSC was first suspected to exist in N79 in 2017 from Spitzer and Herschel observations. The SSC was observed with

ALMA Alma or ALMA may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Alma'' (film), a 2009 Spanish short animated film * ''Alma'', an upcoming film by Sally Potter * ''Alma'' (Oswald de Andrade novel), 1922 * ''Alma'' (Le Clézio novel), 2017 * ''Alma'' ( ...

. This showed that the SSC is at the center of two colliding filaments. ALMA also showed bipolar outflows that are 65,000 years old and a

HII region An H II region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds of light year ...

associated with the SSC. The stellar content was first studied with

Gemini Gemini most often refers to: * Gemini (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac * Gemini (astrology), an astrological sign Gemini may also refer to: Science and technology Space * Gemini in Chinese astronomy, the Gemini constellat ...

in 2021. At that time it was estimated that the SSC contains stars with a mass between 10,000 and 100,000 . Observations with JWST confirmed H72.97-69.39 as a SSC. Researchers discovered five massive stars in the center of the SSC with masses ranging between 20 and 40 . The youngest massive young stellar objects (YSOs) of H72.97-69.39 is called Y3 and is 10,000 years old. The central ionizing source is Y4, which is the most massive of the YSOs with a mass of around 40 . With

MIRI Miri () is a coastal city in north-eastern Sarawak, Malaysia, located near the border of Brunei, on the island of Borneo. The city covers an area of , located northeast of Kuching and southwest of Kota Kinabalu. Miri is the second largest ...

the researchers identified 102 embedded YSOs in total. Yet to be published work with

NIRCam NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) is an instrument aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. It has two major tasks, as an imager from 0.6 to 5 micrometre, μm wavelength, and as a wavefront sensor to keep the 18-section mirrors functioning as one ...

detected 1550 young stars in N79.

Gallery

File:A massive cluster is born (potm2401a).jpg, N79-S in

mid-infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those of ...

with JWST. The bright object in the upper half contains the five most massive YSOs of the super star cluster. File:LHA 120-N 79 NIRCam.jpg, N79-S in near-infrared with JWST. The super star cluster is on the right (which overlaps with the HII-region NGC 1722). On the left is the star cluster NGC 1727.

References

{{reflist , refs= {{Cite web , title=Young Stars in the Milky Way's Backyard Challenge Our Understanding of How They Form , url=https://public.nrao.edu/news/young-stars/ , access-date=2025-01-17 , website=National Radio Astronomy Observatory , language=en-US {{Cite journal , last1=Nayak , first1=Omnarayani , last2=Nally , first2=Conor , last3=Hirschauer , first3=Alec S. , last4=Jones , first4=Olivia C. , last5=Jaspers , first5=Jeroen , last6=Lenkić , first6=Laura , last7=Meixner , first7=Margaret , last8=Habel , first8=Nolan , last9=Reiter , first9=Megan , last10=Chu , first10=Laurie , last11=Kavanagh , first11=Patrick J. , last12=Robberto , first12=Massimo , last13=Sargent , first13=B. A. , date=2024-11-01 , title=Embedded Young Stellar Objects near H72.97-69.39: A Forming Super Star Cluster in N79 , journal=The Astrophysical Journal , volume=975 , issue=2 , pages=262 , bibcode=2024ApJ...975..262N , doi=10.3847/1538-4357/ad7baf , issn=0004-637X , doi-access=free {{Cite journal , last1=Nayak , first1=Omnarayani , last2=Hirschauer , first2=Alec S. , last3=Kavanagh , first3=Patrick J. , last4=Meixner , first4=Margaret , last5=Chu , first5=Laurie , last6=Habel , first6=Nolan , last7=Jones , first7=Olivia C. , last8=Lenkić , first8=Laura , last9=Nally , first9=Conor , last10=Reiter , first10=Megan , last11=Robberto , first11=Massimo , last12=Sargent , first12=B. A. , date=2024-03-01 , title=JWST Mid-infrared Spectroscopy Resolves Gas, Dust, and Ice in Young Stellar Objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud , journal=The Astrophysical Journal , volume=963 , issue=2 , pages=94 , bibcode=2024ApJ...963...94N , doi=10.3847/1538-4357/ad18bc , issn=0004-637X , doi-access=free, url=https://epubs.stfc.ac.uk/work/57688821 {{Cite journal , last1=Andersen , first1=Morten , last2=Zinnecker , first2=Hans , last3=Hirschauer , first3=Alec S. , last4=Nayak , first4=Omnarayani , last5=Meixner , first5=Margaret , date=2021-04-01 , title=The Stellar Content of H72.97-69.39, a Potential Super Star Cluster in the Making , journal=The Astronomical Journal , volume=161 , issue=4 , pages=206 , arxiv=2102.06544 , bibcode=2021AJ....161..206A , doi=10.3847/1538-3881/abe622 , doi-access=free , issn=0004-6256 {{Cite journal , last1=Nayak , first1=O. , last2=Meixner , first2=M. , last3=Sewiło , first3=M. , last4=Ochsendorf , first4=B. , last5=Bolatto , first5=A. , last6=Indebetouw , first6=R. , last7=Kawamura , first7=A. , last8=Onishi , first8=T. , last9=Fukui , first9=Y. , date=2019-06-01 , title=ALMA Reveals Kinematics of Super Star Cluster Candidate H72.97-69.39 in LMC-N79 , journal=The Astrophysical Journal , volume=877 , issue=2 , pages=135 , bibcode=2019ApJ...877..135N , doi=10.3847/1538-4357/ab1b38 , issn=0004-637X , doi-access=free {{Cite journal , last1=Ochsendorf , first1=Bram B. , last2=Zinnecker , first2=Hans , last3=Nayak , first3=Omnarayani , last4=Bally , first4=John , last5=Meixner , first5=Margaret , last6=Jones , first6=Olivia C. , last7=Indebetouw , first7=Remy , last8=Rahman , first8=Mubdi , date=2017-10-01 , title=The star-forming complex LMC-N79 as a future rival to 30 Doradus , url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017NatAs...1..784O/abstract , journal=Nature Astronomy , volume=1 , issue=11 , pages=784–790 , arxiv=1710.00805 , bibcode=2017NatAs...1..784O , doi=10.1038/s41550-017-0268-0 , issn=2397-3366 {{Cite journal , last=Henize , first=Karl G. , date=1956-09-01 , title=Catalogues of Hα-emission Stars and Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds. , url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1956ApJS....2..315H/abstract , journal=The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series , volume=2 , pages=315 , bibcode=1956ApJS....2..315H , doi=10.1086/190025 , issn=0067-0049 Emission nebulae Large Magellanic Cloud Dorado H II regions Star-forming regions Astronomical objects discovered in 1956 Super star clusters

Super star cluster

Gallery

See also

References