| dc.description | Star formation is one of the most important research areas in modern astrophysics, and high-mass star formation, in particular, still presents unresolved questions. Stars form out of huge volumes of gas and dust,
which can be observed through the dust thermal continuum emission and the line emission of molecules. The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) observed several young massive
objects, in various stages of evolution, toward the Vulpecula region(l=59º) during its 2005 flight. During this work we have used follow-up data taken with the Very Large Array (VLA) to study, at much higher
angular resolution, the structure and kinematics of the coldest and youngest sources found by BLAST in Vulpecula. These observations have used the (J,K) = (1,1) and (2,2) rotation-inversion transitions of NH3
which have been used to determine various physical parameters. Our results indicate that these BLAST sources are likely to be high-mass starless cores that might form massive stars in the future. | |
