This paper analyses the integrated ultraviolet spectra taken with the Inter
national Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and optical ground-based spectra taken
with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) of the giant H ii region NGC 604.
These data are complemented with ultraviolet (WFPC2 through F170W) and H a
lpha (WFPC2 through F656N) images retrieved from the Hubble Space Telescope
(HST) archive.
The ultraviolet resonance wind stellar lines, the nebular optical emission
lines and the higher order terms of the Balmer series, and He I absorption
lines detected in the spectra of NGC 604 are interpreted using evolutionary
models optimized for young star-forming regions. The evolutionary state an
d the massive stellar content of the region are derived in a self-consisten
t way.
The three techniques applied suggest that the central ionizing cluster in N
GC 604 is very young, similar or equal to 3 Myr old, and that the stars in
the cluster were formed in an instantaneous burst following a Salpeter (alp
ha=2.35) or flatter (alpha=1.5) initial mass function (IMF), having stars m
ore massive that 80 M.. The stellar cluster is able to provide most of the
ionizing photons needed to photoionize the whole nebula, and the wind power
to form the central shell structure where the cluster core is located. The
stellar cluster is affected by an extinction similar to the average extinc
tion that affects the ionized gas. The estimated number of massive stars in
the cluster is also in agreement with that derived from previous studies b
ased on the detection of individual stars. The results that we present here
support the use of these techniques for the interpretation of the integrat
ed light of more distant star-forming regions.