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The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey

Evans, C. J.; Bastian, N.; Beletsky, Y.; Brott, I.; Cantiello, M.; Clark, J. S.; Crowther, P. A.; de Koter, A.; de Mink, S. E.; Dufton, P. L.; Dunstall, P.; Gieles, M.; Gräfener, G.; Hénault-Brunet, V.; Herrero, A.; Howarth, I. D.; Langer, N.; Lennon, D. J.; Maíz Apellániz, J.; Markova, N.; Najarro, F.; Puls, J.; Sana, H.; Simón-Díaz, S.; Smartt, S. J.; Stroud, V. E.; Taylor, W. D.; Trundle, C.; van Loon, J. Th.; Vink, J. S.; Walborn, N. R.
Star clusters: basic galactic building blocks throughout time and space, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, IAU Symposium, Volume 266, p. 35-40
01/2010

ABSTRACT

The Tarantula Survey is an ambitious ESO Large Programme that has obtained multi-epoch spectroscopy of over 1000 massive stars in the 30 Doradus region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Here, we introduce the scientific motivations of the survey and give an overview of the observational sample. Ultimately, quantitative analysis of every star, paying particular attention to the effects of rotational mixing and binarity, will be used to address fundamental questions in both stellar and cluster evolution.