The Carina Nebula is home to several massive star clusters and more than 65 O stars. The Trumpler 16 cluster, including its famous member eta Carina, is thought to power the winds and radiation responsible for carving out the complex structures seen in Figure 1. Based on the morphology of these structures, this region of the Carina Nebula known as the South Pillars. Because these pillars are likely formed by the strong winds and radiation of massive stars, they are ideal places to investigate the interaction between this stellar feedback and dense molecular gas. Using the fully-sampled and velocity-resolved GREAT maps of these pillars, scientists can probe the kinematics, morphology, and physical conditions within these interesting regions.

The data are available publicly available in the archive under project ID 75_0038 for further research.

GREAT maps of G287P77 in [OI], CO (11-10), CO (8-7), and CO (5-4)

GREAT maps of G287P77 in [OI] (top-left), CO (11-10) (top-right), CO (8-7) (bottom-right), and CO (5-4) (bottom-right). For each map, four panels are shown. The top-left panel shows the channel map at the velocity indicated by the red line in the top-right panel. The top-right panel shows the spectrum at the position indicated by the intersection of the two black lines. The bottom-left panel shows the integrated intensity image summed over the velocities indicated by the yellow shading on the bottom-right. The bottom right shows the average spectrum of the map (if there is a polygon drawn on the bottom-left image, the spectrum is an average over the area of the polygon).

GREAT
star formation
interstellar and intergalactic medium
Emission lines
Young stars and protostellar objects
Spectroscopy
HII region
Molecular Cloud