Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS Imaging of W3 IRS 5: A Trapezium in the Making?

Abstract

We present Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS imaging of W3 IRS 5, a binary high-mass protostar. In addition to the two protostars, NICMOS images taken in the F222M and F160W filters show three new 2.22 micron sources with very red colors; these sources fall within a region 5600 AU in diameter, and are coincident with a 100 solar mass dense molecular clump. Two additional point sources are found within 0.4'' (800 AU) of one of the high-mass protostars; these may be stellar companions or unresolved emission knots from an outflow. We propose that these sources constitute a nascent Trapezium system in the center of the W3 IRS 5 cluster containing as many as five proto OB stars. This would be the first identification of a Trapezium still deeply embedded in its natal gas.

accepted to ApJ letters

References in corpus (4)

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• The Luminosity & Mass Function of the Trapezium Cluster: From B stars to the Deuterium Burning Limit
• The Formation of Massive Stars by Accretion Through Trapped Hypercompact HII Regions
• High-Resolution Continuum Imaging at 1.3 and 0.7 cm of the W3 IRS 5 Region

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