SCYON Abstract

Received on September 4 2001

The youngest massive star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds

Authors	M. Heydari-Malayeri ¹, V. Charmandaris ², L. Deharveng ³, M.R. Rosa ⁴, D. Schaerer ⁵, H. Zinnecker ⁶
Affiliation	¹Observatoire de Paris, DEMIRM, 61 Ave de l'Observatoire, F--75014 Paris, France ²Astronomy Department, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA ³Observatoire de Marseille, 2 Place Le Verrier, F-13248 Marseille Cedex 4, France ⁴STECF - European Southern Observatory, D-85748 Garching, Germany ⁵Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees, 14, Avenue E. Belin, F-31400 Toulouse, France ⁶Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, D-14482 Potsdam, Germany
To appear in	the proceedings of the XVIIth IAP Colloquium, ``Gaseous matter in Galaxies and Intergalactic Space''
Contact	mohammad.heydari-malayeri@obspm.fr
URL	http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109034
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Abstract

High resolution observations with HST have recently allowed us to resolve and study several very tight clusters of newly born massive stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Situated in an extremely rare category of HII regions, being only 5" to 10" across and of high excitation and extinction, these stars are just hatching from their natal molecular clouds. Since the SMC is the most metal-poor galaxy observable with very high angular resolution, this work may provide valuable templates for addressing issues of star formation in the very distant metal-poor galaxies of the early Universe.