galassie

Star formation in our Galaxy typically occurs in environments less massive than 10^4 solar masses. However, a few more extreme star forming environments on the Milky Way exist, where hundreds of thousands to millions of stars form in dense regions. Often called “supermassive star clusters”, they are rare in our Galaxy today, while they are common in galaxies experiencing epochs of starburst. The international project EWOCS (Extendend Westerlund 1 and 2 Open Clusters Survey) is targeting the two closest superstar clusters in the Milky Way with a multi-wavelengtht survey which is based on an extensive set of data from radio to X-rays, with the main objective of studying the formation and early evolution of stars over the whole mass spectrum in a starburst environment.
In this talk, I will discuss the motivations and objectives of the project, the published results, ongoing studies and the future developments.