IS CEPHEUS A EAST A HERBIG-HARO OBJECT

Cepheus A remains a unique radio object. It consists of lines of about 13 H II regions, each of which, it was originally suggested, was produced by a B3 star. However, since the lifetime of each H II region was not expected to be greater than about 1000 years, it was difficult to explain how 13 stars could all be in the same stage of evolution inside such a short time interval, let alone why the stars should form in lines. Recently, two highly variable sources have been detected in the region, which can appear and disappear inside a time interval of about 50-80 days. Also, we have recently reanalyzed some of the data which show that in a line of four objects, one is moving at a speed of 300 km s-1 with respect to the others. The latter aspects appear similar to those of some Herbig-Haro objects, but in the case of Cepheus A, the objects are in line with one of the highly variable sources, which could be the power house. It could be that we are observing much later type stars than B3, which have excess infrared emission, and are in a very turbulent stage, as occurs when they go through the Hayashi phase. The data and interpretation, is described.