to better understand the star formation process it is necessary to examine the effects of environment on star-forming molecular clouds. the magellanic clouds provide environments very different from the milky way. by studying star formation in the lmc and smc we will gain insight into how varying environments affect star formation. a useful measure of the star formation going on in an individual molecular cloud is the far infrared luminosity from warm (virgul40 k) dust associated with embedded stellar objects. observations of the fir luminosity will usually contain a significant contribution from cool (15-25 k) dust heated by the general isrf. in order to accurately measure the star formation from a cloud it is necessary to remove this cool dust component. the cool dust spectrum peaks between 100 and 200 microns, therefore fir data is needed in this range to obtain an accurate measure of star formation in molecular clouds. one way to quantify star formation in a molecular cloud is the star formation activity (sfa). sfa is the ratio of fir luminosity of the embedded sources to cloud mass. we have already determined virial masses for several molecular clouds in the lmc and smc using co (j=1->0) observations. in addition we have mapped the clouds at 60 and 100 microns using iras data. iso data will be used to determine the total fir luminosity for several clouds in varying environments in the lmc, and in the smc. the iso data is crucial in that it provides the long wavelength information needed to accurately measure the total fir luminosity, as well as the cool dust component of this emission.
Instrument
PHT32
Temporal Coverage
1996-05-06T11:21:54Z/1996-05-06T15:58:18Z
Version
1.0
Mission Description
The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) was the world's first true orbiting infrared observatory. Equipped with four highly-sophisticated and versatile scientific instruments, it was launched by Ariane in November 1995 and provided astronomers world-wide with a facility of unprecedented sensitivity and capabilities for a detailed exploration of the Universe at infrared wavelengths.
