Speaker
Matteo Messa
(Stockholm University)
Description
While star formation has been long studied on the
single-star scale and on the galaxy scale, the link between
these two widely separated scales still needs to be firmly
established. We use the new high-resolution NUV and U band
HST observations from LEGUS (Legacy Extra Galactic UV
Survey) to study the nearby interacting spiral galaxy M51 at
the intermediate scale of the star cluster population. It
has been recently pointed out that the environment can
affect the formation and evolution processes of the star
clusters. The exquisite high quality multiband coverage of
M51 (NUV,U,B,V,I bands) is providing
luminosities, ages, masses, and extinctions of the huge
cluster population sample. We analyzed this sample as
function of different environments of the galaxy, in order
to understand how the cluster properties change as function
of the environment where they form and interact; this gives
an insight on how the star formation process at this
intermediate scale is affected by the galactic environment.
Primary author
Matteo Messa
(Stockholm University)
