Articulo
VVV Study of the Young Milky Way Star Clusters Mercer 35, 69 and 70
Revista Mexicana De Astronomía Y Astrofísica
Registro en:
15010003
15010003
Autor
Penaloza, F.
Borissova, J.
Bonatto, C.
Geisler, D.
Minniti, D.
Institución
Resumen
Young massive clusters are usually deeply embedded in dust and gas. They represent excellent astrophysical laboratories for revealing the enigma of star formation processes and the early stages of stellar evolution. Wide-field infrared surveys are a modern tool for studying hidden clusters. "Vista variables in Vía Láctea - VVV" (Minniti et al. New Astron. 15:433, 2010) is an ESO/Chile/VISTA public deep near-IR survey, covering the Galactic Bulge and Southern Galactic disk. This is the next step of our systematic study of the cluster content of the inner Milky Way. Here we present our first analysis of the young hidden clusters Mercer 35, 69 and 70. It is based on VVV and SOFI/NTT JHKS photometry and follow-up NIR spectroscopy. All of the investigated clusters are young (t≤10 Myr). The basic cluster parameters are obtained from photometry. The follow-up spectroscopy of probable cluster members shows that the brightest star in Mercer 35 presents characteristics of a red supergiant! FONDAP FONDAP