Program: GS-2019A-DD-103

Stellar clusters are the birthplace of most stars. Yet we only have a rudimentary understanding of how they form, especially their evolution during the early, gas-dominated phases. We propose deep GSAOI/GeMS Ks band imaging to complement already obtained HST J and H band data of the gas dominated massive young proto-cluster G286.21+0.17. With a total gas mass of ~10^4 Msun and an infall rate of ~3.4*10^(-2) Msun/yr, the region is a still forming candidate to become a massive star clusters like NGC 3603. The Ks band observations will provide the crucial long wavelength information, at the same spatial resolution as HST in the J band, to probe the most embedded parts of the protocluster gas clump. This will in turn allow us to estimate the total mass of stars formed, to determine the disk frequency in such a young cluster and to provide an accurate measurement of the low-mass initial mass function. This is a resubmission of an 18A program that did not get observed (GS-2018A-Q-136).