We report on results of a 96.7 ks Chandra observation of one of the youngest , most embedded and massive young stellar clusters studied in X-rays – RCW 38 .
We detect 460 sources in the field of which 360 are confirmed to be associated with the RCW 38 cluster .
The cluster members range in luminosity from ~ { } 10 ^ { 30 } ergs s ^ { -1 } to 10 ^ { 33.5 } ergs s ^ { -1 } .
Over ten percent of the cluster members with over 100 counts exhibit flares while about 15 % of cluster members with over 30 counts are variable .
Of the sources identified as cluster members , 160 have near-infrared ( NIR ) counterparts either in the 2MASS database or detected via VLT observations .
Of these about 20 % appear to have optically thick disks .
An additional 353 members are identified through NIR observations of which at least 50 % possess optically thick disks .
We fit over 100 X-ray sources as absorbed Raymond-Smith type plasmas and find the column to the cluster members varies from 10 ^ { 21.5 } to 10 ^ { 23 } cm ^ { -2 } .
We compare the gas to dust absorption signatures in these stars and find N _ { H } = A _ { V } \times 2 \times 10 ^ { 21 } cm ^ { -2 } .
We find that the cluster contains 31 candidate OB stars and is centered about 10″ ( 0.1 pc ) west of the primary source of the ionization , the O5 star IRS 2 .
The cluster has a peak central density of about 400 X-ray sources pc ^ { -2 } .
We estimate that the total cluster membership exceeds 2000 stars .