Speaker
Description
While the Chamaeleon cloud complex harbors hundreds of newly born stars, the adjacent Musca filament is considered to be at a quiescent stage of star formation. To assess whether Musca is prestellar or already forming stars, we studied a $\sim0.5^\circ \times 2^\circ$ region along the filament using near- to mid-infrared data from 2MASS and AllWISE. Here we report more than a dozen embedded sources with infrared colors consistent with being young, some associated with dense cores. As these sources are too faint for Gaia, we estimate their proper motions using 2MASS and ALLWISE astrometry measured at two epochs separated by 10 years to constrain the membership. Among these candidates, the IRAS 12322$-$7023 exhibits significant infrared excess and is spatially associated with a dense cloud clump. Moreover, its proper motion is consistent with the Chamaeleon population, supporting it a bona fide young star. Additional candidates likewise need confirmation by more reliable astrometry, less source decontamination with deeper survey data. Our results suggest that the Musca filament is forming stars and shares the same star-formation history as the Chamaeleon dark cloud complex.
| Participate the oral/poster presentation award competition | No |
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