2002/06/18 by Stephanie Plante, S. Plante, M. Sauvage +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Circumstellar dust #Cosmic dust #Dwarf galaxy #Extinction (optical mineralogy) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Infrared #Metallicity #Physics #Spectral energy distribution #Star cluster #Star formation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/342445
32 pages, 3 figures,accepted for publication in AJ
arxiv created 2002/06/18 · openalex publication_date 2002/09/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We analyze the infrared (6-100 micron) spectral energy distribution of the blue compact dwarf and metal-poor (Z=Zsolar/41) galaxy SBS0335-052. With the help of DUSTY (Ivezic et al. 1999), a program that solves the radiation transfer equations in a spherical environment, we evaluate that the infrared (IR) emission of SBS0335-052 is produced by an embedded super-star cluster (SSC) hidden under 105 Msolar of dust, causing 30 mag of visual extinction. This implies that one cannot detect any stellar emission from the 2x106 Msolar stellar cluster even at near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. The derived grain size distribution departs markedly from the widely accepted size distribution inferred for dust in our galaxy (the so-called MRN distribution, Mathis et al. 1977), but resembles what is seen around AGNs, namely an absence of PAH and smaller grains, and grains that grow to larger sizes (around 1 micron). The fact that a significant amount of dust is present in such a low-metallicity galaxy, hiding from UV and optical view most of the star formation activity in the galaxy, and that the dust size distribution cannot be reproduced by a standard galactic law, should be borne in mind when interpreting the spectrum of primeval galaxies.