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High-Velocity Star Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
The Astrophysical Journal
|May 2, 2000
Abstract:
Light-echo measurements show that SN 1987A is 425 pc behind the LMC disk. It is continuing to move away from the disk at 18 km s-1. Thus, it has been suggested that SN 1987A was ejected from the LMC disk. However, SN 1987A is a member of a star cluster, so this entire cluster would have to have been ejected from the disk. We show that the cluster was formed in the LMC disk, with a velocity perpendicular to the disk of about 50 km s-1. Such high-velocity formation of a star cluster is unusual, having no known counterpart in the Milky Way.