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EPoS |
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EPoS Contribution
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The Brick is dense and icy, but still barely star-forming
Adam Ginsburg UFlorida, Gainesville, US | |
| The Brick, G0.253+0.016, is a massive (~105 Msun) infrared dark cloud in the Galactic center. It has been of particular interest for the last several decades because of its high density but low star formation activity. JWST presents a new view of the cloud, digging deeper into its interior than any previous infrared observations. There continues to be an apparent dearth of ongoing and recent star formation. A handful of young star-forming regions around it give confidence that we could have detected star formation if it were there. Adding to the strangeness, JWST shows extensive CO ice in this non-star-forming gas, so CO is freezing out much earlier than we might have expected. We are making progress in identifying the regions above and below star-forming thresholds and observationally determining those thresholds, but Galactic Center clouds like the Brick continue to undermine universal star formation theories. | |
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| Caption: JWST's view of The Brick, the most massive, dense "starless" cloud in the Galaxy. The cloud is backlit by ionized hydrogen. The edge of the dark cloud is blue because CO ice at 4.6 microns absorbs the Pfund Beta (n=7-5) recombination line. | |
| Collaborators: A. T. Barnes C.D. Battersby A. Bulatek S. Gramze J.D. Henshaw D. Jeff x. Lu E.A.C. Mills D.L. Walker |
Key publication
Relevant topic(s): Chemistry Cores Molecular Clouds |
| Relevant Big Question: How do the initial conditions, and thresholds, for star formation vary with environment? | |