— A composite of the full 30 Doradus Nebula field in two Spitzer and a VISTA/VMC bands. North is up and east to the left. The top ten IR sources are labeled in yellow (S), while bright, isolated WN stars are in white (R for Radcliffe, V for VFTS). R136 is the bright blue object below center, while the older cluster Hodge 301 with late-type supergiants (green) is labeled. Note the color range of the IR sources with this broad baseline. 

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... 2.— Same as Fig. 1 but entirely in VISTA/VMC bands, which have higher resolution. Note the multiplicity of several IR sources as discussed in the text, as well as the reversals of relative magnitudes in the S3 and S10 systems with respect to Fig. 1.  ...

Context 2

... 2.— Same as Fig. 1 but entirely in VISTA/VMC bands, which have higher resolution. Note the multiplicity of several IR sources as discussed in the text, as well as the reversals of relative magnitudes in the S3 and S10 systems with respect to Fig. 1.  ...

Context 3

... 4a, b, c display enlargements of the individual source fields, which show a number of significant local structures and relationships that are discussed in this section. With We were reference surprised to Figures to find one 1 and of 2, the we most propose luminous an origin Spitzer of star sources formation embedded at this in extensive location triggered diffuse emission by adjacent at the SN northwestern events. To extreme the NE of of the S1 field, are the evidently three luminous, unrelated “isolated” to R136. S1 WN appears stars R144, to be associated R146, and R147 with a (Feast larger et CO al. 1960), feature apparently catalogued associated as 30Dor-06 with by the Johansson large kinematical et al. (1998), (Chu & and Kennicutt with an H 1994) II region and X-ray listed (Townsley as No. 889 et by al. Kastner 2006) shell et al. at (2008). the north In the of IR 30 images Dor. This it appears object could as a somewhat have been diffuse produced double by the source, explosion with the of another fainter barely former resolved WR star. component To the SW toward of S1 the lies SE. the 20 Fortunately, Myr old cluster a recent Hodge HST 301 /WFC3 that has F775W produced image 40 (GO SN 12499, (Grebel PI & D.J. Chu Lennon) 2000) and reveals is surrounded what lurks by another within (Figure 5): giant shell. the Numerous object dark appears globules as a can dusty also H be II seen knot, along here the named interface “The between Skull Nebula,” the two shells containing in optical a compact images, cluster suggesting dominated that further by four star I formation ∼ 19–21 stars is likely in an to occur EW line in these (the compressed brighter IR filaments—a “component”) novel and feature two more of toward 30 Doradus. the SE (the fainter IR “component”) (E. Sabbi, priv. comm.). Two more comparable stars within the outer nebulosity to the N and S may be additional members or field objects. With reference to Figures 1 and 2, we propose an origin of star formation at this location triggered by adjacent SN events. To the NE of S1 are the three luminous, “isolated” WN stars R144, R146, and R147 (Feast et al. 1960), apparently associated with the large kinematical (Chu & Kennicutt 1994) and X-ray (Townsley et al. 2006) shell at the north of 30 Dor. This object could have been produced by the explosion of another former WR star. To the SW of S1 lies the 20 Myr old cluster Hodge 301 that has produced 40 SN (Grebel & Chu 2000) and is surrounded by another giant shell. Numerous dark globules can also be seen along the interface between the two shells in optical images, suggesting that further star formation is likely to occur in these compressed filaments—a novel feature of 30 Doradus. This relatively fainter source is ISRW-11 of Rubio et al. (1998). (It is also NIC07a of Brandner et al. 2001, in which the cross-identification with Rubio et al. was missed.) It is located at the northern end of a diffuse structure that is bright in the Spitzer image (Fig. 1) but dark in JHK (Fig. 2). As noted by Walborn et al. (1999), with appropriate stretch and scale the object appears multiple in the NICMOS data, and analysis of its PSF indicates that it is extended, with a Gaussian sigma of 1.29 pix vs. 1.04 pix for a point source in K . Here we analyze the S2 photometry as if from a single source, with the caveat that it may actually be a tight multiple ...