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| EPoS Contribution |
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Star formation at 2 kpc and beyond: Sucesses and limitations of Spitzer
Lori Allen Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, USA | |
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Imaging surveys of star-forming regions in the nearby molecular clouds
with the Spitzer Space Telescope (e.g. c2d, Taurus, Gould's Belt
Legacy projects) are complete to very low luminosities
(10^-3 M_sun)
and masses (well into the brown dwarf regime). From these surveys we
can draw inferences about the timescales for pre-main sequence evolution,
the efficience of star formation, and the structure of young clusters.
The situation is quite different for more distant, massive star forming regions at 2 kpc and beyond, where most stars form. The Spitzer observations of these regions are more biased and less sensitive than the nearby cloud surveys. I will discuss recent results for both nearby and more distant regions, and consider the limitations of the Spitzer data at 2 kpc and beyond, as well as prospects for improvement in the future. | |