AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 132 Views of the Magellanic Clouds Across Wavelengths
Poster, Wednesday, 9:20am-6:30pm, January 11, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[132.15] On-Going Star Formation in the LMC Superbubble N51D

R.A. Gruendl, Y.-H. Chu, C.-H.R. Chen (UIUC), B.A. Whitney (SSI), K.D. Gordon (Steward Observatory), L.W. Looney (UIUC), G.C. Clayton (LSU), J.R. Dickel, B.C. Dunne (UIUC), S.D. Points, R.C. Smith (CTIO), R.M. Williams (UIUC)

It is often hypothesized that star formation can be triggered or propagates from nearby sites that have recently formed stars. The superbubble LH\alpha\,120-N\,51D (N51D) in the Large Magellanic Cloud contains two OB associations, LH\,51 and LH\,54 and appears to be a good site to search for evidence of triggered/propagating star formation. A previous study by Oey and Smedley (1998) find ages for LH\,51 and LH\,54 of 1-2 Myr and ~3 Myr, respectively. They also determine that the shell kinematics are consistent with the origin of this superbubble being the combined stellar winds of the massive stars in LH\,54 and speculate that this may have triggered the formation of LH\,51. We have examined the on-going star formation in N51D using combined observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Magellanic Clouds Emission Line Survey, the Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey and 2MASS. We find sites of on-going star formation both along the periphery of the the expanding superbubble shell and projected within the superbubble interior.


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