X-ray Spur in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The LMC hosts the giant HII region 30 Doradus and the very massive stellarcluster R136. Observations suggest that a collision of large HI structures hastriggered the formation of R136. The ROSAT LMC survey revealed a large diffusestructure extending from 30 Dor to the south, called the Xray spur, which fillsabout 1/20 of the LMC and emits soft thermal Xrays. It seems to be locatedbetween the colliding HI gas, with the western edge coinciding with the locationwhere the HI components meet. We propose observations of the Xray spur withXMMNewton to study the hot plasma with the aim to understand whether collidinglarge gas structures can trigger the formation of very massive stars and theheating of such a large part of the ISM. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]