Program: GN-2005B-Q-3

Giant HII regions (GHIIRs) are among the most luminous objects that can be observed in distant galaxies. In these regions, star formation occurs at extremely high rates. In the Local Group there are two GHIIRs that stand out as the most important starbursts: 30 Doradus in the LMC and NGC 604 in M33. NGC 604 presents a core of massive stars surrounded by nebular filamentary structures, showing a striking similarity with those observed in 30 Dor. Molecular clouds associated to the ionizing cluster NGC604 region have been detected in CO, and bright infrared sources became apparent from the latest IR survey from 2MASS. This may be interpreted as evidence towards the existence of a second generation of young massive stars is being born in the boundaries of a molecular cloud. We propose to perform JHKs broadband imaging of NGC604 to investigate the presence of a new stellar young and massive generation of stars. These observations will allow us to produce color-color and color-magnitude diagrams for the IR sources found there. This information will be used to establish the NIR photometric characteristics of the massive star cluster in the core of NGC 604 and the interface between the ionized cavity and the giant molecular cloud Note: this is a re-submission of a proposal which was awarded Band 1 telescope time on 2004B but was not observed due to extremely poor weather conditions at Mauna Kea.