High-sensitivity IRAS observations of the Chamaeleon I dark cloud

Very sensitive IRAS observations of a region of 0.8 sq deg in the Chamaeleon I cloud have revealed 70 compact sources. Hot sources are field stars; warm sources are associated with pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars in the cloud center; others may be in an even earlier phase of gravitational collapse. Cool sources, detected only at the long wavelengths, surround the main cloud and appear to be associated with small globules. Only a small fraction (less than 20 percent) of the total luminosity of the known PMS objects is emitted in the IRAS bands. This has important implications for the classification of the newly discovered embedded objects.