Research Note

The discovery based on GLIMPSE data of a protostar driving a bipolar outflow

Jing-Hua Yuan¹, Jin Zeng Li¹, Ya Fang Huang¹, Chih-Hao Hsia² and Jingqi Miao³

¹ National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, 100012 Beijing, PR China
e-mail: jhyuan@nao.cas.cn
² Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China
³ Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR, UK

Received: 9 August 2011
Accepted: 2 January 2012

Abstract

We report the discovery based on GLIMPSE data of a proto-stellar system driving a bipolar outflow. The bipolar outflow closely resembles the shape of an hourglass in the infrared. The total luminosity of L_total = 5507   L_⊙, derived from IRAS fluxes, indicates the ongoing formation of a massive star in this region. The spectral energy distribution (SED) of the driving source is fitted with an online SED fitting tool, which results in a spectral index of about 1.2. This, along with the presence of a bipolar outflow, suggests the detection of a Class I protostar. The driving source indicates prominent infrared excesses in color-color diagrams based on archived 2 MASS and GLIMPSE data, which is in line with an early evolutionary stage of the system.