The missing half of star formation. (Astronomy Observation)

In the past studies of star formation have concentrated on star-forming regions which produce large numbers of stars in close proximity to each other; the clusters and associations.

There is emerging evidence that around half of all stars (at least in our region of the Galaxy) may form in much smaller groups or perhaps singly. Part of the reason this mode of star formation has remained hidden is because it seems not to produce O-stars.

These are the most massive and luminous stars, which are used as the signposts for finding star formation in other galaxies, and so the implication is that we really could have mis-counted the amount of star formation by a factor two, not only in our own Galaxy, but in the Universe as a whole. In this proposal we will determine the amount of missing star formation, and explore the properties of those stars.