This review examines the state-of-the-art knowledge of high-mass star and massive cluster
formation, gained from ambitious observational surveys, which acknowledges the multiscale …

▪ Abstract Stellar clusters are born embedded within giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and
during their formation and early evolution are often only visible at infrared wavelengths …

Understanding the link between massive (≳ 30 M⊙) stellar black holes (BHs) and their
progenitor stars is a crucial step to interpret observations of gravitational-wave events. In this …

A universal initial mass function (IMF) is not intuitive, but so far no convincing evidence for a
variable IMF exists. The detection of systematic variations of the IMF with star-forming …

Abstract The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large (6.6 m), cold (< 50 K), infrared
(IR)-optimized space observatory that will be launched early in the next decade into orbit …

We review current understanding of star formation, outlining an overall theoretical framework
and the observations that motivate it. A conception of star formation has emerged in which …

The enormous radiative and mechanical luminosities of massive stars impact a vast range of
scales and processes, from the reionization of the universe, to the evolution of galaxies, to …

The origin of the supermassive black holes that inhabit the centres of massive galaxies
remains unclear,. Direct-collapse black holes—remnants of supermassive stars, with …

Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics.
However, a quantitative prediction of the star formation rate and the initial distribution of …

The distribution of stellar masses that form in one star formation event in a given volume of
space is called the initial mass function (IMF). The IMF has been estimated from low-mass …