The Rosette Eye: the key transition phase in the birth of a massive star

Abstract

Massive protostars dramatically influence their surroundings via accretion-induced outflows and intense radiation fields. They evolve rapidly, the disk and infalling envelope being evaporated and dissipated in $\sim$ 10${}^5$ years. Consequently, they are very rare and investigating this important phase of early stellar evolution is extremely difficult. Here we present the discovery of a key transient phase in the emergence of a massive young star, in which ultraviolet radiation from the new-born giant has just punctured through its natal core. The massive young stellar object AFGL 961 II is readily resolved in the near infrared. Its morphology closely resembles a cat's eye and is here dubbed as the Rosette Eye. Emerging ionized flows blow out an hourglass shaped nebula, which, along with the existence of strong near-infrared excess, suggests the existence of an accretion disk in the perpendicular direction. The lobes of the hourglass, however, are capped with arcs of static H${}_2$ emission produced by fluorescence. This study has strong implications for our understanding of how massive stars embark on their formation.

arXiv comment3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• A General Catalogue of Molecular Hydrogen Emission-Line Objects (MHOs) in Outflows from Young Stars
• A large-scale CO survey of the Rosette Molecular Cloud: assessing the effects of O stars on surrounding molecular gas
• Diverse protostellar evolutionary states in the young cluster AFGL961
• The circumstellar environment of the YSO TMR-1 and a revisit to the candidate very low-mass object TMR-1C