Herschel Far-IR Observations of the Giant H II Region NGC 3603

We observed the giant H II region around the NGC 3603 YC with the five broad bands (70, 160, 250, 350, 500 μm) of the SPIRE and PACS instruments, on board the Herschel Space Observatory. Together with what is currently known of the stellar, atomic, molecular, and warm dust components, this additional and crucial information should allow us to better understand the details of the star-formation history in this region. The main objective of the investigation is to study, at high spatial resolution, the distribution and main physical characteristics of the cold dust. By reconstructing the temperature and density maps, we found, respectively, a mean value of 36 K and log_10 N_H = 22.0 ± 0.1 cm^-2. We carried out a photometric analysis detecting 107 point-like sources, mostly confined to the north and south of the cluster. By comparing our data with spectral energy distribution models, we found that 35 sources are well represented by young stellar objects in early evolutionary phases, from Class 0 to Class I. The Herschel detections also provided far-IR counterparts for 4 H2O masers and 11 objects previously known from mid-IR observations. The existence of so many embedded sources confirms the hypothesis of intense and ongoing star-formation activity in the region around NGC 3603 YC.
Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led principal investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.