elements in our bodies like carbon and nitrogen, and even the oxygen we breathe, were created in the centers of stars. To create heavier elements than iron, massive stars are required. The main question that the Star formation history of MAssive pRoTostars (SMART) project aims to address is 'how are these massive protostars born? Answering this question is ultimately addressing our own origins.
Determining how massive stars form, i.e. those stars with more than 8 times the mass of our Sun, is important for many reasons. They are key for regulating galaxies, the interstellar medium, and the star formation process itself. There is some evidence our own Solar System was influenced by massive stars in its early history. However, massive stars are rare compared to their lower-mass 1 brethren and thus tend to be found in formation sites that are relatively far from the Sun, typically >1 kpc away. During the protostellar phase, these stars also tend to be highly obscured by the gas and dust of their parental molecular cloud. For these reasons, despite their importance, the formation mechanism of massive stars is still poorly understood.
The overall objective of the SMART project is to shed further light on the formation of massive protostars. To do this we have an observational approach by peering into the heart of massive star-forming regions using the most powerful telescopes on Earth and space, which include the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). By analysing images and spectra, we aim to fully characterize the central forming protostar, its jets and outflows, as well as its surrounding environment. This work will greatly contribute to our understanding of this important, yet poorly understood, aspect of astrophysics.
