Mass of a Young Protostar Measured from the Kinematics of Disk

Mass is one of the most fundamental quantities of a stellar object, and direct estimations of mass from the rotation kinematics of circumstellar disk are important in understanding the evolution of young stellar objects. We present our observations of the NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2 protostar in the ammonia lines. The emission structure was interpreted as a circumstellar disk around the protostar. The disk has a Keplerian-like rotation curve, and we derived the mass of the protostar. The mass, accretion rate, and age are consistent with what are expected from the standard theory of low-mass star formation.