Rosat HRI observations of the young starburst galaxy NGC 5253

Large numbers of Wolf-Rayet stars in the nearby (4.1 Mpc) starbursting dwarf galaxy NGC 5253 indicate the starburst is only similar to 5 million years old (Schaerer et al. 1997). This makes NGC 5253 an ideal object for studying the early phases of starburst activity, in particular superbubbles blown by supernovae and winds from massive stars. Previous low resolution observations suggested the observed X-ray emission was due to a superbubble. We use the enhanced resolution available with a long ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) observation and find that the X-ray emission arises from several unresolved sources associated with the young star clusters seen in the optical. We discuss the possible origins of the point-like emission, and find that they could be small superbubbles blown by the individual clusters of massive stars.