A SPITZER census of star formation activity on the Pipe Nebula

Post date: Sep 30, 2010 2:50:26 PM

For its size and mass the Pipe Nebula seems to be exceptionally inefficient in forming stars. A SPITZER MIPS survey at wavelengths of 24 μm and 70 μm of essentially the entire cloud turned out only a hand full of candidates. The resulting star formation efficiency for the entire cloud mass is only ~0.06%.