Context. In the project galactic cold cores we are carrying out Herschel photometric observations of cold regions of the interstellar clouds as previously identified with the Planck satellite. The aim of the project is to derive the physical properties of the population of cold clumps and to study its connection to ongoing and future star formation. Aims. We examine the cloud structure around the Planck detections in 71 fields observed with the Herschel SPIRE instrument by the summer of 2011. We wish to determine the general physical characteristics of the fields and to examine the morphology of the clouds where the cold high column density clumps are found. Methods. Using the Herschel SPIRE data, we derive colour temperature and column density maps of the fields. Together with ancillary data, we examine the infrared spectral energy distributions of the main clumps. The clouds are categorised according to their large scale morphology. With the help of recently released WISE satellite data, we look for signs of enhanced mid-infrared scattering ("coreshine"), an indication of growth of the dust grains, and have a first look at the star formation activity associated with the cold clumps. Results. The mapped clouds have distances ranging from ∼100 pc to several kiloparsecs and cover a range of sizes and masses from cores of less than 10 M to clouds with masses in excess of 10 000 M . Most fields contain some filamentary structures and in about half of the cases a filament or a few filaments dominate the morphology. In one case out of ten, the clouds show a cometary shape or have sharp boundaries indicative of compression by an external force. The width of the filaments is typically ∼0.2-0.3 pc. However, there is significant variation from 0.1 pc to 1 pc and the estimates are sensitive to the methods used and the very definition of a filament. Enhanced mid-infrared scattering, coreshine, was detected in four clouds with six additional tentative detections. The cloud LDN 183 is included in our sample and remains the best example of this phenomenon. About half of the fields are associated with active star formation as indicated by the presence of mid-infrared point sources. The mid-infrared sources often coincide with structures whose sub-millimetre spectra are still dominated by the cold dust.

AKARI, the first Japanese satellite dedicated to infrared astronomy, was launched on 2006 February 21, and started observations in May of the same year. AKARI has a 68.5 cm cooled telescope, together with two focal-plane instruments, which survey the sky in six wavelength bands from mid–to far-infrared. The instruments also have a capability for imaging and spectroscopy in the wavelength range 2-180$\mu$m in the pointed observation mode, occasionally inserted into a continuous survey operation. The in-orbit cryogen lifetime is expected to be one and a half years. The All-Sky Survey will cover more than 90% of the whole sky with a higher spatial resolution and a wider wavelength coverage than that of the previous IRAS all-sky survey. Point-source catalogues of the All-Sky Survey will be released to the astronomical community. Pointed observations will be used for deep surveys of selected sky areas and systematic observations of important astronomical targets. These will become an additional future heritage of this mission.

Context. For the project Galactic cold cores, Herschel photometric observations were carried out as a follow-up of cold regions of interstellar clouds previously identified with the Planck satellite. The aim of the project is to derive the physical properties of the population of cold sources and to study its connection to ongoing and future star formation. Aims. We build a catalogue of cold sources within the clouds in 116 fields observed with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE instruments. We wish to determine the general physical characteristics of the cold sources and to examine the correlations with their host cloud properties. Methods. From Herschel data, we computed colour temperature and column density maps of the fields. We estimated the distance to the target clouds and provide both uncertainties and reliability flags for the distances. The getsources multiwavelength source extraction algorithm was employed to build a catalogue of several thousand cold sources. Mid-infrared data were used, along with colour and position criteria, to separate starless and protostellar sources. We also propose another classification method based on submillimetre temperature profiles. We analysed the statistical distributions of the physical properties of the source samples. Results. We provide a catalogue of ∼4000 cold sources within or near star forming clouds, most of which are located either in nearby molecular complexes ( 1 kpc) or in star forming regions of the nearby galactic arms (∼2 kpc). About 70% of the sources have a size compatible with an individual core, and 35% of those sources are likely to be gravitationally bound. Significant statistical differences in physical properties are found between starless and protostellar sources, in column density versus dust temperature, mass versus size, and mass versus dust temperature diagrams. The core mass functions are very similar to those previously reported for other regions. On statistical grounds we find that gravitationally bound sources have higher background column densities (median N bg (H 2 ) ∼ 5 × 10 21 cm −2 ) than unbound sources (median N bg (H 2 ) ∼ 3 × 10 21 cm −2 ). These values of N bg (H 2 ) are higher for higher dust temperatures of the external layers of the parent cloud. However, only in a few cases do we find clear N bg (H 2 ) thresholds for the presence of cores. The dust temperatures of cloud external layers show clear variations with galactic location, as may the source temperatures. Conclusions. Our data support a more complex view of star formation than in the simple idea of a column density threshold. They show a clear influence of the surrounding UV-visible radiation on how cores distribute in their host clouds with possible variations on the Galactic scale.

Context. Circumstellar disks are expected to evolve quickly in massive young clusters harboring many OB-type stars. Two processes have been proposed to drive the disk evolution in such cruel environments: (1) gravitational interaction between circumstellar disks and nearby passing stars (stellar encounters); and (2) photoevaporation by UV photons from massive stars. The relative importance of both mechanisms is not well understood. Studies of massive young star clusters can provide observational constraints on the processes of driving disk evolution. Aims. We investigate the properties of young stars and their disks in the NGC 6357 complex, concentrating on the most massive star cluster within the complex: Pismis 24. Methods. We use infrared data from the 2MASS and Spitzer GLIMPSE surveys, complemented with our own deep Spitzer imaging of the central regions of Pismis 24, in combination with X-ray data to search for young stellar objects (YSOs) in NGC 6357 complex. The infrared data constrain the disk presence and are complemented by optical photometric and spectroscopic observations, obtained with VLT/VIMOS, that constrain the properties of the central stars. For those stars with reliable spectral types we combine spectra and photometry to estimate the mass and age. For cluster members without reliable spectral types we obtain the mass and age probability distributions from R and I-band photometry, assuming these stars have the same extinction distribution as those in the "spectroscopic" sample. We compare the disk properties in the Pismis 24 cluster with those in other clusters/star-forming regions employing infrared color-color diagrams. Results. We discover two new young clusters in the NGC 6357 complex. We give a revised distance estimate for Pismis 24 of 1.7 ± 0.2 kpc. We find that the massive star Pis 24-18 is a binary system, with the secondary being the main X-ray source of the pair. We provide photometry in 9 bands between 0.55 and 9 μm for the members of the Pismis 24 cluster. We derive the cluster mass function and find that up to the completeness limit at low masses it agrees well with the initial mass function of the Trapezium cluster. We derive a median age of 1 Myr for the Pismis 24 cluster members. We find five proplyds in HST archival imaging of the cluster, four of which are newly found. In all cases the proplyd tails are pointing directly away from the massive star system Pis 24-1. One proplyd shows a second tail, pointing away from Pis 24-2, suggesting this object is being photoevaporated from two directions simultaneously. We find that the global disk frequency (∼30%) in Pismis 24 is much lower than some other clusters of similar age, such as the Orion Nebula Cluster. When comparing the disk frequencies in 19 clusters/star-forming regions of various ages and different (massive) star content, we find that the disks in clusters harboring extremely massive stars (typically earlier than O5), like Pismis 24, are dissipated roughly twice as quickly as in clusters/star-forming regions with...