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

The nucleus of starburst galaxy NGC 253 has been located with high res olution 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 ra dio point source. The intensity peak itself has substantial emission f rom hot gas of at least 500 K. The other ''hot spots'' are merely hole s in the dust, rather than intrinsically luminous areas. A dense struc ture 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 co nsistent with spiral arms. The molecular material/dust in the bar trac es the 6 cm radio continuum emission. Dense knots of molecular gas are correlated with 6 cm radio peaks, suggesting that the fainter radio s ources are H II regions rather than supernovae or supernova remnants.