The Lagoon Saga goes on: Proplyds and other remarkable Objects seen in WFPC2 Images of the Lagoon Nebula

Session 41 - T Tauri Stars & Protostellar Regions.
Display session, Wednesday, June 11
South Main Hall,

[41.14] The Lagoon Saga goes on: Proplyds and other remarkable Objects seen in WFPC2 Images of the Lagoon Nebula

A. Caulet (ESO)

The spectacular WFPC2 images of the Lagoon Nebula have attracted much attention since our STScI press release in January 1997. The level of detail revealed by Hubble was rarely obtained before for a giant stellar nursery except for the Orion Nebula. The Lagoon Nebula (also called M8, NGC 6523) is 1.5 kpc from us, about 10 times more distant from us than the planetary nebula Helix, 3 times more distant from us than the Orion Nebula, and at about the same distance as the Egg Nebula (M16). In these three regions, Hubble revealed several thousands cometary knots (CK) in Helix, many partially ionized globules (PIGs) and protoplanetary disks (proplyds) in Orion, and the evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) in M16. Those objects contain small dense gas cores, externally ionized, leading sometimes to the formation of a star. In this poster, we use the WFPC2 observations of the Lagoon Nebula in all filters available (nebular emission lines, and continuum blue and red light) for a detailed investigation of remarkable objects identified in those images (Bok globules, bow shocks around stars, ionized cusps, wisps, rings, knots and jets).

In an early phase of the study, one candidate proplyd close to the ionizing star Herschel 36 was identified and described briefly in the ST-ECF Newsletter (number 24, March 1997, pages 12--13). A complete analysis of the ``proplyd" is given here.

Then, the poster consists of: a) color views of whole field; b) identification of many remarkable objects; c) individual presentation with continuum subtracted emission line images, contour maps, flux diagrams i.e. band-fluxes as function of wavelength; and finally, d) a comparison between the Lagoon objects and CKs, PIGs, proplyds, EGGS identified in other nebulae. A movie is being prepared for projection at this meeting.

If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to ecf.hq.eso.org/$\sim$acaulet/lagoon.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the the Web space for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back button on your browser.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: acaulet@eso.org

Program listing for Wednesday