Massive star formation

Abstract

Over the last decades our knowledge on the formation of solar-type stars has increased significantly. Among the next frontiers in the field we have the understanding of stellar formation at the extremes, that is, how are objects much more massive (OB stars) and much less massive (brown dwarfs) than the Sun formed. I will focus on the formation of massive stars, discussing if it can be understood simply as a scaled-up version of the formation of solar type stars, or if phenomena of different nature are involved. © 2006: Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM.