THE TRUE NUCLEUS OF NGC-253 REVEALED BY HIGH-RESOLUTION NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING

The nucleus of starburst galaxy NGC 253 has been located with high resolution J-, H-, K-band imaging. It lies shrouded in a dense dust cloud with A(V) greater-than-or-equal-to 24 and molecular mass 6 x 10(4) M. located almost-equal-to 2.2'' northwest of the intensity peak in the J, H, and K maps. The nucleus is identified with the brightest 6 cm radio point source. The intensity peak itself has substantial emission from hot gas of at least 500 K. The other ''hot spots'' are merely holes in the dust, rather than intrinsically luminous areas. A dense structure of molecular gas of mass 5 x 10(4) M. extends almost-equal-to 70 pc along the major axis. This structure shows evidence of curvature consistent with spiral arms. The molecular material/dust in the bar traces the 6 cm radio continuum emission. Dense knots of molecular gas are correlated with 6 cm radio peaks, suggesting that the fainter radio sources are H II regions rather than supernovae or supernova remnants.