Anatomy of a region of star formation : infrared images of S 106 (AFGL 2584).
Abstract
Infrared images of the young object S106 (AFGL 2584) have been produced at 3.6 microns, 10 microns (N band), and 19.5 microns (Q band) with 5 arcsec spatial resolution using the Wyoming infrared telescope. Photometry from 2.3 to 23 microns is presented for eight compact sources which were identified in the infrared nebula. There is remarkable spatial coincidence among compact optical, infrared, and radio knots, suggesting that the gas and dust in the nebula are well mixed and that Lyman photons may be important in heating the nebular dust. The infrared images are consistent with a model in which a recently evolved star excites a biconical nebula from within a large irregular disk of gas and dust, which is a remnant of the stellar collapse process. It is concluded that a single source (IRS 4) is responsible for exciting the entire optical, infrared, and radio structure of S106. The exciting object is probably a single luminous star of spectral type O7-O9. The dust constituents in S106 do not appear to be depleted appreciably below cosmic abundance. Several dust knots may be sites where low luminosity companions to the central source have condensed.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- March 1982
- DOI:
- 10.1086/159765
- Bibcode:
- 1982ApJ...254..550G
- Keywords:
-
- Early Stars;
- Hydrogen Clouds;
- Infrared Astronomy;
- Nebulae;
- Star Formation;
- Stellar Spectrophotometry;
- Cosmic Dust;
- Gravitational Collapse;
- Infrared Telescopes;
- Isophotes;
- Stellar Luminosity;
- Astrophysics