Australia Telescope National Facility

Joint ATNF/AAO Colloquium by Dr. Kate Brooks (ESO)

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

<P><LI> Thu. 13 June, 3:30pm: <b>Kate Brooks</b>
(European Southern Observatory) <BR>
<em>``New views on the Carina Nebula''</em> <BR>
(Joint ATNF/AAO Colloquium)
<b>Abstract.</b>
The Carina Nebula, at a distance of 2.2 kpc, is one the most
extreme and complex cases of massive stars interacting with their
environment. It is part of a southern giant molecular cloud complex that
extends over 130 pc. The two most influential star clusters in the nebula
are Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16 which contain a combined total of 34
O-type stars, including 6 very rare and massive 03 stars. Trumpler 16 also
contains one of the most massive stars known -- Eta Carinae. Such a high
concentration of massive stars remains unique in our Galaxy. A very
dynamic picture is now emerging for the Carina Nebula which includes
numerous sites of ongoing star formation, giant dust pillars that point
towards Eta Carinae, wide-spread photodissociation regions and large
wind-blown cavities. Evidence for giant bow shocks and proplyds also
exist. In this talk I will review these new findings and argue that there
remains a wealth of information on high-mass star formation to be gained
from future studies of this region.