Peering into the Heart of the Giant Molecular Cloud G148.24+00.41: A Deep Near-infrared View of the Newly Hatched Cluster FSR 655
Abstract We present a detailed near-infrared study of an embedded cluster located in the hub of the giant molecular cloud G148.24+00.41 of mass ∼10 5 M ⊙ , with the TANSPEC instrument mounted on the 3.6 m Devasthal Optical Telescope. The hub is located near the geometric center of the cloud and represents its most massive clump. We studied the central 2 pc × 2 pc area of the hub with 5 σ limiting magnitudes of 20.5, 20.1, and 18.6 mag in the J , H , and K s bands, respectively. Using the K s - band luminosity function and comparing it with the synthetic clusters, we obtained the age of the cluster as ∼0.5 Myr, which was found to corroborate well with the visual extinction versus the age of nearby embedded clusters. We find that the present mass of the cluster is around ∼180 M ⊙ , and the cluster is currently forming stars at a rate of ∼330 M ⊙ Myr −1 , with an efficiency of ∼20%. The cluster is connected to an extended gas reservoir through a filamentary network; thus, we hypothesize that the cluster has the potential to become a richer cluster in a few Myr of time.
Authors
- Saurabh Sharma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5731-3057)
- M. R. Samal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9431-6297)
- Jessy Jose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4908-4404)
- Vineet Rawat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6515-2863)
- Brajesh Kumar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7225-2475)
- D. K. Ojha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9312-3816)
- Ram Kesh Yadav (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6740-7425)
- R. Sagar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4973-4745)
Institutions
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (IN)
- Physical Research Laboratory (IN)
- Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IN)
- Yunnan University (CN)
- Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IN)
- Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (IN)
- Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati (IN)
- National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (TH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astronomical Journal
- Published
- 2024-08-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad630d
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.66
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- California Institute of Technology
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
- Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory