EPoS
EPoS Contribution

Unveiling the majority origins of young stellar clusters in the local Milky Way and their role in shaping interstellar structure

Cameren Swiggum
U Vienna, Vienna, AT
The Gaia space mission, complemented by ground-based spectroscopic surveys, has revealed the 3D positions and velocities for thousands of Milky Way star clusters. Employing orbital integration, the youngest of these clusters (<100 Myr) can be traced backwards in time to unveil their birth-regions. In this contribution, we demonstrate that 57% of high-quality young clusters within one kiloparsec of the Sun originate from three distinct regions. Currently dispersed across the local Galactic disk, these clusters, over 30 million years ago, emerged from three compact star-forming complexes. We estimate these three cluster families produced over 200 supernovae combined, significantly shaping local interstellar structures such as the Local Bubble (Alpha Persei family) and the nearest Galactic super-shell GSH 238+00+09 supershell (Collinder 135 family), visible in modern three-dimensional dust maps. Our findings provide insights into the formation of major local interstellar structures and a basis for future research on the stellar and interstellar environment's evolution near the Sun.
Caption: (Interactive ) A bird's-eye (XY) view of the present-day positions of clusters belonging to a family (orange/cyan/alpha colored points) overlaid on a kiloparsec-scale, 3D dust map (grayscale). Each of the four panels shows the same region centered on the Sun's position (yellow dot). The panels also show a fit to the boundary of the Local Bubble (LB; outlined in blue) and the kiloparsec long dust shell, GSH 238+00+09 (GSH 238; dotted white ellipse).
Collaborators:
J. Alves
R. Benjamin
S. Ratzenboeck
N. Miret-Roig
J. Grossschedl
S. Meingast
A. Goodman
R. Konietzka
C. Zucker
E. Hunt
S. Reffert
 Relevant topic(s):
Clustered SF
Feedback
High-Mass SF
Relevant Big Question:
How do massive star-forming complexes evolve and shape the large-scale structure of the interstellar medium.