To probe the ongoing physical mechanism , we studied a wide-scale environment around AFGL 5142 ( area \sim 25 pc \times 20 pc ) using a multi-wavelength approach .
The Herschel column density ( N ( \mathrm { H } _ { 2 } ) ) map reveals a massive inverted Y-like structure ( mass \sim 6280 M _ { \odot } ) , which hosts a pair of elongated filaments ( lengths > 10 pc ) .
The Herschel temperature map depicts the filaments in a temperature range of \sim 12.5–13.5 K. These elongated filaments overlap each other at several places , where N ( \mathrm { H } _ { 2 } ) > 4.5 \times 10 ^ { 21 } cm ^ { -2 } .
The ^ { 12 } CO and ^ { 13 } CO line data also show two elongated cloud components ( around - 1.5 and - 4.5 km s ^ { -1 } ) toward the inverted Y-like structure , which are connected in the velocity space .
First moment maps of CO confirm the presence of two intertwined filamentary clouds along the line of sight .
These results explain the morphology of the inverted Y-like structure through a combination of two different filamentary clouds , which are also supported by the distribution of the cold H i gas .
Based on the distribution of young stellar objects ( YSOs ) , star formation ( SF ) activities are investigated toward the inverted Y-like structure .
The northern end of the structure hosts AFGL 5142 and tracers of massive SF , where high surface density of YSOs ( i.e. , 5–240 YSOs pc ^ { -2 } ) reveals strong SF activity .
Furthermore , noticeable YSOs are found toward the overlapping zones of the clouds .
All these observational evidences support a scenario of collision/interaction of two elongated filamentary clouds/flows , which appears to explain SF history in the site AFGL 5142 .