We present studies of a massive protocluster AFGL5142 in the J=2-1 transition of the CO isotopologues, SO, CH 3 OH and CH 3 CN lines, as well as continuum at 225 GHz and 8.4 GHz. The 225 GHz continuum emission reveals three prominent peaks MM-1, MM-2 and MM-3 with estimated circumstellar material of 3, 3, and 2 M ⊙ , respectively. MM-1 and MM-2 are associated with strong CH 3 CN emission with temperatures of 90 ± 20 and 250 ± 40 K, respectively, while both MM-1 and MM-3 are associated with faint continuum emission at 8.4 GHz. The heating implied by the temperature indicates that MM-1 and MM-2 cores contain embedded massive young stars. Additional dust continuum peaks MM-4 and MM-5 appear to be associated with H 2 O masers. With many continuum sources at cm and mm wavelengths, and those already identified in the infrared, this region is forming a cluster of stars.A total of 22 lines from 9 molecules are detected. The line strength varies remarkably in the region. The strong SO emission is found both in molecular outflows and cloud cores. CH 3 OH emission, on the contrary, is much weaker in molecular outflows, and is detected toward hot cores MM-1 and MM-2 only, but is absent in less massive and perhaps less evolved cores MM-3, MM-4 and MM-5. The modeling of the CH 3 CN spectra yields an abundance relative to H 2 of 1 × 10 −8 and 4 × 10 −8 for the MM-1 and MM-2 cores, respectively. With similar core mass, the higher temperature and CH 3 CN abundance in the MM-2 core suggest that it might be at a more evolved stage than the MM-1 core.

We present a high angular resolution map of 850 µm continuum emission of the Orion Molecular Cloud-3 (OMC 3) obtained with the Submillimeter Array 1 (SMA); the map is a mosaic of 85 pointings covering an approximate area of 6 ′ .5×2 ′ .0 (0.88×0.27 pc). We detect 12 spatially resolved continuum sources, each with an H 2 mass between 0.3-5.7 M ⊙ and a projected source size between 1400-8200 AU. All the detected sources are on the filamentary main ridge (n H 2 ≥10 6 cm −3 ), and analysis based on the Jeans theorem suggests that they are most likely gravitationally unstable. Comparison of multi-wavelength data sets indicates that of the continuum sources, 6/12 (50 %) are associated with molecular outflows, 8/12 (67 %) are associated with infrared sources, and 3/12 (25 %) are associated with ionized jets. The evolutionary status of these sources ranges from prestellar cores to protostar phase, confirming that OMC-3 is an active region with ongoing embedded star-formation. We detect quasi-periodical separations between the OMC-3 sources of ≈17 ′′ /0.035 pc. This spatial distribution is part of a large hierarchical structure, that also includes fragmentation

We report the results of our observations of the S255IR area with the SMA at 1.3 mm in the very extended configuration and at 0.8 mm in the compact configuration as well as with the IRAM-30m at 0.8 mm. The best achieved angular resolution is about 0.4 arcsec. The dust continuum emission and several tens of molecular spectral lines are observed. The majority of the lines is detected only towards the S255IR-SMA1 clump, which represents a rotating structure (probably disk) around the young massive star. The achieved angular resolution is still insufficient for conclusions about Keplerian or non-Keplerian character of the rotation. The temperature of the molecular gas reaches 130-180 K. The size of the clump is about 500 AU. The clump is strongly fragmented as follows from the low beam filling factor. The mass of the hot gas is significantly lower than the mass of the central star. A strong DCN emission near the center of the hot core most probably indicates a presence of a relatively cold ( 80 K) and rather massive clump there. High velocity emission is observed in the CO line as well as in lines of high density tracers HCN, HCO + , CS and other molecules. The outflow morphology obtained from combination of the SMA and IRAM-30m data is significantly different from that derived from the SMA data alone. The CO emission detected with the SMA traces only one boundary of the outflow. The outflow is most probably driven by jet bow shocks created by episodic ejections from the center. We detected a dense high velocity clump associated apparently with one of the bow shocks. The outflow strongly affects the chemical composition of the surrounding medium.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and expeditiously spread across the globe causing a global pandemic. Research on SARS-CoV-2, as well as the closely related SARS-CoV-1 and MERS coronaviruses is restricted to BSL-3 facilities. Such BSL-3 classification make SARS-CoV-2 research inaccessible to the majority of functioning research laboratories in the US; this becomes problematic when the collective scientific effort needs to be focused on such in the face of a pandemic. However, a minimal system capable of recapitulating different steps of the viral life cycle without using the virus’ genetic material could increase accessibility.  In this work, we assessed the four structural proteins from SARS-CoV-2 for their ability to form virus-like particles (VLPs) from human cells to form a competent system for BSL-2 studies of SARS-CoV-2. Herein, we provide methods and resources of producing, purifying, fluorescently and APEX2-labeling of SARS-CoV-2 VLPs for the evaluation of mechanisms of viral budding and entry as well as assessment of drug inhibitors under BSL-2 conditions. These systems should be useful to those looking to circumvent BSL-3 work with SARS-CoV-2 yet study the mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 enters and exits human cells.

Stellar feedback from high-mass stars (e.g., Hii regions) can strongly influence the surrounding interstellar medium and regulate star formation. Our new ALMA observations reveal sequential high-mass star formation taking place within one sub-virial filamentary clump (the G9.62 clump) in the G9.62+0.19 complex. The 12 dense cores (MM 1-12) detected by ALMA are at very different evolutionary stages, from starless core phase to UC Hii region phase.