Star formation in the M17 SW giant molecular cloud

The first high-sensitivity, high-resolution far-IR survey of an entire molecular cloud complex is presented. The 20 km/s M17 SW complex, in addition to the three luminous M17 sources, contains 10 sources spread over 110 pc. The 10 lower luminosity sources divide into two groups: small blister sources powered by late O stars and compact sources powered by clusters of early B stars. No compact far-IR sources with luminosities between the detection limit and 10,000 solar luminosities were detected. Three possible formation mechanisms for the stars that power the far-IR sources in the M17 SW complex are examined. Sequential formation cannot explain the sources seen throughout the complex. Some type of stochastic formation mechanism or collapse induced by a spiral density wave could explain the observations.