Rosette Nebula and Maddalena Cloud structures

The algorithm is applied to two real data sets as an example of its use. The Rosette molecular cloud is a "typical" star-forming cloud, but in the Maddalena molecular cloud high-mass star formation is completely absent. Comparison of the two clump lists generated by the algorithm show that on a one-to-one basis the clumps in the star-forming cloud have higher peak temperatures, higher average densities, and are more gravitationally bound than in the non star-forming cloud.

Collective properties of the clumps, such as temperature-size-line-width-mass relations appear very similar, however. Contrary to the initial results reported in a previous paper (Williams & Blitz, 1993ApJ...405L..75W), we find that the current, more thoroughly tested analysis finds no significant difference in the clump mass spectrum of the two clouds.