Opening the Treasure Chest: A Newborn Star Cluster Emerges from Its Dust Pillar in Carina

Abstract

We present detailed observations of the Treasure Chest, a compact nebula at the head of a dust pillar in the southern Carina nebula. This object is of interest because it is an example of a dense young cluster containing at least one massive star, the formation of which may have been triggered by feedback from the very massive stars in the Carina nebula, and possibly Eta Car itself. We investigate both the nebular and stellar content of the object. Near-IR emission-line images reveal a cavity inside the head of the dust pillar, which contains a dense cluster of young stars, while the observed spectrum of the nebula is consistent with an H II region ionized by an O9.5 V star. After subtracting contamination of field stars within the Carina nebula itself, we compare the cluster's color magnitude diagram with pre-main-sequence isochrones to derive a likely cluster age less than about 0.1 Myr. This is in reasonable agreement with the dynamical age of a few times 10^4 yr for the expanding nebular cavity, indicating extreme youth. Stars in the Treasure Chest cluster are highly reddened, with extinction values as large as A_V=50. Two-thirds of cluster members show strong infrared excess colors indicative of circumstellar disks, which may prove to be among the highest fraction yet seen for a young cluster. All evidence suggests that the Treaure Chest is an extremely young cluster that is just now breaking out of its natal cloud into the surrounding massive star forming region, and is a good target for more detailed study.Published in: Astron.J. 129 (2005) 888