Abstract
The birth of very massive stars is not well understood1,2,3, in contrast to the formation process of low-mass stars like our Sun4,5. It is not even clear that massive stars can form as single entities; rather, they might form through the mergers of smaller ones born in tight groups6,7. The recent claim of the discovery of a massive protostar in M17 (a nearby giant ionized region) forming through the same mechanism as low-mass stars8 has therefore generated considerable interest. Here we show that this protostar has an intermediate mass of only 2.5 to 8 solar masses (M⊙), contrary to the earlier claim of 20M⊙ (ref. 8). The surrounding circumstellar envelope contains only 0.09M⊙ and a much more extended local molecular cloud has 4–9M⊙.
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This Letter is based on data collected at the Subaru Telescope and the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, which are operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
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Sako, S., Yamashita, T., Kataza, H. et al. No high-mass protostars in the silhouette young stellar object M17-SO1. Nature 434, 995–998 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03471
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03471
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