<i>Spitzer</i>/IRAC‐MIPS Survey of NGC 2244: Protostellar Disk Survival in the Vicinity of Hot Stars

Abstract

We present the results from a survey of NGC 2244 from 3.6 to 24 micron with\nthe Spitzer Space Telescope. The 24micron-8micron-3.6micron color composite\nimage of the region shows that the central cavity surrounding the multiple O\nand B stars of NGC2244 contains a large amount of cool dust visible only at\n24micron. Our survey gives a detailed look at disk survivability within the\nhot-star-dominated environment in this cavity. Using mid infrared two color\ndiagrams ([3.6]-[4.5] vs [5.8]-[8.0]) we identified 337 class II and 25 class I\nobjects out of 1084 objects detected in all four of these bands with\nphotometric uncertainty better than 10%. Including the 24 micron data, we found\n213 class II and 20 class I sources out of 279 stars detected also at this\nlatter band. The center of the class II density contours is in very good\nagreement with the center of the cluster detected in the 2MASS images. We\nstudied the distribution of the class II sources relative to the O stars and\nfound that the effect of high mass stars on the circumstellar disks is\nsignificant only in their immediate vicinity.\n