Near-infrared imaging of RAFGL7009S

Abstract : RAFGL7009S is a deeply embedded massive young stellar objet (YSO) showing strong ice and saturated silicate absorption features in the mid infrared. It is associated with the ultracompact H  region G25.65+1.05, which may be excited by a B1V star. We have obtained JHK images of a 1 field centred on this YSO. In K we detect a non-resolved object coinciding with the radio continuum emission peak. Considering the high extinction towards this source (A V ≥ 100 mag), the observed K emission is more than 7 mag in excess of that expected for a B1V star. We suggest that this emission is mainly due to scattering of the central zone emission, as recently found for a sample of embedded massive YSOs associated with 3.1 µm H 2 O ice absorption (Ishii et al. 2002). We estimate the YSO's age to be 2×10 4 years. The outflow, the methanol maser emission and the strong ice absorption features suggest the presence of a dense medium very close to the star, possibly a disk.