Program: GN-2009A-Q-23

The star forming region of M17 offers us a glimpse of some of the youngest and most massive stars in our part of the Galaxy. The first O-stars to appear from the natal cloud offer us important clues about how the star formation process solves the angular momentum problem in creating massive stars. Here we propose a program of spatially resolved, moderate dispersion spectroscopy with Gemini and NIFS/Altair of the brightest O-stars in M17. These observations will establish the incidence of close and wide binaries and determine the projected rotational velocities (plus the stellar effective temperatures and gravities). The results will show how the angular momentum of the natal cloud is apportioned into rotational and orbital angular momentum for the most massive stars.