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High Velocity Star Formation in the LMC

David S. Graff, Andrew P. Gould

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0002285

Abstract

Light-echo measurements show that SN1987A is 425 pc behind the LMC disk. It is continuing to move away from the disk at 18 . Thus, it has been suggested that SN1987A was ejected from the LMC disk. However, SN1987A 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 . Such high velocity formation of a star cluster is unusual, having no known counterpart in the Milky Way.

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