The LkHa 101 Cluster

TL;DR

This paper reviews the LkHα 101 cluster, highlighting its significance as a young, early B-type star with a circumstellar disk, and discusses recent findings and future research directions in understanding its formation and environment.

Contribution

It synthesizes current knowledge of the LkHα 101 cluster and proposes future research avenues to better understand massive star formation and cluster dynamics.

Findings

LkHα 101 is a young, early B-type star with a circumstellar disk.

Recent studies have focused on the surrounding star cluster and its formation mechanisms.

The region offers insights into massive star formation timescales and clustered formation processes.

Abstract

In the infrared, the heavily reddened LkH$\alpha$ 101 is one of the brightest young stars in the sky. Situated just north of the Taurus-Auriga complex in the L1482 dark cloud, it appears to be an early B-type star that has been serendipitously exposed during a rarely observed stage of early evolution, revealing a remarkable spectrum and a directly-imaged circumstellar disk. While detailed studies of this star and its circumstellar environment have become increasingly sophisticated in the 50 years since Herbig (1956) first pointed it out, the true nature of the object still remains a mystery. Recent work has renewed focus on the young cluster of stars surrounding LkH$\alpha$ 101, and what it can tell us about the enigmatic source at its center (e.g., massive star formation timescales, clustered formation mechanisms). This latter effort certainly deserves more intensive study. We describe the current knowledge of this region and point out interesting work that could be done in the future.