High-mass star formation in Orion B triggered by cloud-cloud collision: Merging molecular clouds in NGC 2024
Abstract
We performed new comprehensive 13CO(J = 2-1) observations toward NGC 2024, the most active star-forming region in Orion B, with an angular resolution of ∼100″ obtained with Nanten2. We found that the associated cloud consists of two independent velocity components. The components are physically connected to the H II region as evidenced by their close correlation with the dark lanes and the emission nebulosity. The two components show complementary distribution with a displacement of ∼0.6 pc. Such complementary distribution is typical to colliding clouds discovered in regions of high-mass star formation. We hypothesize that a cloud-cloud collision between the two components triggered the formation of the late O-type stars and early B stars localized within 0.3 pc of the cloud peak. The duration time of the collision is estimated to be 0.3 million years from a ratio of the displacement and the relative velocity ∼3 km s-1 corrected for probable projection. The high column density of the colliding cloud ∼1023 cm-2 is similar to those in the other high-mass star clusters in RCW 38, Westerlund 2, NGC 3603, and M 42, which are likely formed under trigger by cloud-cloud collision. The present results provide an additional piece of evidence favorable to high-mass star formation by a major cloud-cloud collision in Orion.
- Publication:
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Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
- Pub Date:
- January 2021
- DOI:
- 10.1093/pasj/psaa049
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1912.11607
- Bibcode:
- 2021PASJ...73S.256E
- Keywords:
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- ISM: clouds;
- ISM: kinematics and dynamics;
- ISM: molecules;
- stars: formation;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for PASJ. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1706.05652