IRAC and MIPS Observations of the North American and Pelican Nebulae

Details IRAC and MIPS Observations of the North American and Pelican Nebulae IRAC and MIPS Observations of the North American and Pelican Nebulae

Jun 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005sptz.prop20015r&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #20015

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The most extensively studied star-forming regions are Taurus, Ophiuchus and the Chamaeleon complex (low density, no O and B stars) and Orion (high density, concentrated O and B stars). These regions have served as our primary empirical guide to understanding the formation and early evolution of stars and their associated accretion disks. However, these nearby cloud complexes provide snapshots of just the extrema of the star-formation process. Because environment (e.g., radiation field, stellar density) appears to play a significant role in defining, e.g., accretion disk lifetimes and outcome stellar mass functions, it is essential to sample a much broader range of the star-forming environmental spectrum. The nearby (600 pc) North American and Pelican Nebulae Complex (NAN) is such a region. The giant molecular cloud (GMC) housing the NAN contains both an extensive (>10^4 stars) distributed young (1-5 Myr) low and high mass population spanning 2x2 degrees (30x30 pc), as well as newly-formed stars in multiple clusters and aggregates. Despite the proximity of the complex and its rich population of distributed and clustered stars spanning a range of masses, there are as yet NO significant Spitzer data for the NAN. We propose to carry out a deep IRAC and MIPS survey of a ~4 square degree region covering the NAN complex with the goals of (a) mapping the pattern of star forming activity in a region intermediate in environmental characteristics between Orion and Taurus, and linking this pattern to the extensive molecular line studies of this GMC; (b) determining accretion disk lifetimes and characterizing the early evolution of debris disks for a statistically robust sample of young stars spanning a wide range of masses. Because we believe that surveying of this, the 3rd nearest high-mass star-forming GMC, will provide a rich legacy database both for our team and the star-formation community, we waive proprietary rights to our MIPS and IRAC maps.

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