Hot Massive Stars: The Impact of HST

TL;DR

HST has significantly advanced the understanding of hot, massive stars through high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, revealing their structures, environments, and populations in various galaxies and star-forming regions.

Contribution

This review highlights the novel insights gained from HST observations of massive stars and clusters across different galactic environments.

Findings

Resolved individual massive stars in distant HII regions.

Detected Wolf-Rayet stars in metal-poor galaxies.

Detailed imaging of nebulae around massive stars.

Abstract

We review the contribution of Hubble Space Telescope to the study of hot, luminous stars. Optical and IR imaging have permitted spatially resolved observations of young, massive clusters within Local Group galaxies, such as R136, NGC 3603 and Arches, revealing unprecedented concentrations of very massive O stars. UV spectroscopy of field OB stars in the Magellanic Clouds have provided suitable templates for interpretation of metal-poor star-forming galaxies at high-redshift. Spectacular imaging provides the detailed structure of ejecta nebulae from individual stars, including the Homunculus associated with eta Carinae and M1-67, associated with a Wolf-Rayet star. HST has permitted individual massive stars to be spatially resolved in giant HII regions located beyond the Local Group, such as NGC 604, plus individual clusters, dominated by the light of massive stars within starburst galaxies at larger distances, such as NGC 3125. UV spectroscopy of young, massive clusters in the extremely metal-poor HII galaxy I Zw 18 include signatures of large numbers of Wolf-Rayet stars.