HST UV IMAGING OF THE STARBURST REGIONS IN THE WOLF-RAYET GALAXY HE-2-10 - NEWLY FORMED GLOBULAR-CLUSTERS

We have obtained an ultraviolet image of the Wolf-Rayet galaxy He 2-10 using the Faint Object Camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and a filter centered at 2200 angstrom. From previous analysis of optical s pectra of He 2-10, it is known that 0-type and Wolf-Rayet stars are pr esent in large numbers in the nuclear starburst region. In the ultravi olet regime we observe the continuum radiation from the hot star popul ation directly. We find that the star formation activity divides into smaller subunits (''knots''), a few of which may be resolved with diam eters of approximately 10 pc. The extinction-corrected continuum lumin osity at 2200 angstrom of these knots spans a decade in energy, with a mean of approximately 10(38) ergs s-1 angstrom-1. The luminosities ar e compared to those predicted from starburst models for ages between 1 and 10 Myr, from which we estimate the masses of the knots to be betw een 10(5) and 10(6) M.. We suggest that the knots are extremely young globular clusters which have been formed recently, perhaps as the resu lt of an interaction or merger event. It is possible that many such yo ung clusters of OB stars are located within other violent star-forming regions.