Discovery of two embedded clusters with WISE in the high Galactic latitude cloud HRK 81.4-77.8

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of two embedded star clusters within a high-latitude molecular cloud, indicating star formation in an environment previously thought to be non-star-forming, and analyzes their properties and possible origins.

Contribution

The study presents the first detection of star formation in a high-latitude molecular cloud, expanding understanding of star formation environments beyond the Galactic plane.

Findings

Two embedded clusters discovered in high-latitude cloud HRK 81.4-77.8.

Clusters are the most distant known from the Galactic plane.

Cloud and clusters are likely falling from the halo onto the Galactic disc.

Abstract

Molecular clouds at very high latitude ($b>60^{\circ}$) away from the Galactic plane are rare and in general are expected to be non-star-forming. However, we report the discovery of two embedded clusters (Camargo 438 and Camargo 439) within the high-latitude molecular cloud HRK 81.4-77.8 using WISE. Camargo 439 with Galactic coordinates $\ell=81.11^{\circ}$ and $b=-77.84^{\circ}$ is an $\sim2$ Myr embedded cluster (EC) located at a distance from the Sun of $d_{\odot}=5.09\pm0.47$ kpc. Adopting the distance of the Sun to the Galactic centre $R_{\odot}=7.2$ kpc we derive for Camargo 439 a Galactocentric distance of $R_{GC}=8.70\pm0.26$ kpc and a vertical distance from the plane of $-4.97\pm0.46$ kpc. Camargo 438 at $\ell=79.66^{\circ}$ and $b=-78.86^{\circ}$ presents similar values. The derived parameters for these two ECs put HRK 81.4-77.8 in the halo at a distance from the Galactic centre of $\sim8.7$ kpc and $\sim5.0$ kpc from the disc. Star clusters provide the only direct means to determine the high latitude molecular cloud distances. The present study shows that the molecular cloud HRK 81.4-77.8 is currently forming stars, apparently an unprecedented event detected so far among high latitude clouds. We carried out a preliminary orbit analysis. It shows that this ECs are the most distant known embedded clusters from the plane and both cloud and clusters are probably falling ballistically from the halo onto the Galactic disc, or performing a flyby.