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Probing Extragalactic Star Formation
and the Initial Mass Function
 
 
 

 

 


The Project
The Large and Small Magellanic Cloud (LMC, SMC) are the closest undisrupted neighboring dwarf galaxies to our own. They have four to five times lower metallicities than the Milky Way, and their gas-to-dust ratio is much higher, forming environments resembling those of the early universe. Both galaxies show active star formation with HI shells, HII regions, and molecular clouds all linked to young Stellar Associations. This project focus on the stellar content in these young systems and their Initial Mass Function (IMF) in its whole extend from the massive OB stars down to the smallest masses observable. It also deals with study of the massive young stars and their interaction with the ISM through feedback processes, and the low-mass pre-main sequence stars as the fosil records of star formation for the last 20 Myr. The study of Young Stellar Objects in these star-forming regions, as the products of the most recent star formation events in their vicinity, is also part of the project.
This Research Project is supported by
The Max-Planck-Society, MPG
The German Research Foundation, DFG
The German Aerospace Center, DLR
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA

The Large Magellanic Cloud