Massive star formation along the hubble sequence

Far-infrared fluxes have been extracted from the IRAS database for galaxies in the Nearby Galaxies Catalog. The IRAS data are used to determine the Hubble type dependence of the far-infrared luminosity, the L(FIR)/L(Blue) luminosity ratio and, for a subset of the galaxies, the L(FIR)/M(H-2) ratio. Adopting the far-infrared luminosity as a measure of the massive star formation rate, one finds that the IRAS data reveal a previously unsuspected population of early-type (Sa-Sab) spirals with massive star formation rates that rival the most prodigiously star-forming Sc galaxies. Thus, the IRAS data do not support the distinction between the global star-forming capabilities of early- and late-type spirals that has been reported previously in the published literature. (C) 1997 American Astronomical Society.