HST's view of the youngest massive stars in the Magellanic Clouds

TL;DR

This paper uses HST observations to study the youngest massive stars in the Magellanic Clouds, focusing on high-excitation blobs to understand star formation in low-metallicity environments.

Contribution

It provides new high-resolution optical and near-IR data on two high-excitation blobs, offering insights into the physical parameters of newborn massive stars.

Findings

Identification of the youngest massive stars in HEBs

Refined physical parameters of stars in N159-5 and N81

Insights into star formation processes in low-metallicity environments

Abstract

Accurate physical parameters of newborn massive stars are essential ingredients to shed light on their formation, which is still an unsolved problem. The rare class of compact H II regions in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), termed ``high-excitation blobs'' (HEBs), presents a unique opportunity to acquire this information. These objects (~ 4" to 10", ~ 1 to 3 pc, in diameter) harbor the youngest massive stars of the OB association/molecular cloud complexes in the MCs accessible through high-resolution near-IR and optical techniques. We present a brief overview of the results obtained with HST mainly on two HEBs, one in the LMC (N159-5) and the other in the SMC (N81).