[185.12] Hints of Thermal Fragmentation in the Primordial Substructure of NGC2264

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 185 UV to IR Observations of Protostars
Poster, Thursday, 9:20am-4:00pm, January 12, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[185.12] Hints of Thermal Fragmentation in the Primordial Substructure of NGC2264

P. S. Teixeira, C. J. Lada (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), E. T. Young (University of Arizona), M. Marengo, A. Muench (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), J. Muzerolle, N. Siegler, G. Rieke (University of Arizona), L. Hartmann (University of Michigan), T. Megeath, G. Fazio (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

We present Spitzer observations of a young star forming region within NGC2264. These observations reveal new 24 micron sources in curious linear alignments, extending radially like spokes on a wheel from a previously known luminous young protostar. These 24 micron sources are found to be mostly (~60%) Class I protostars that are highly embedded within dense filamentary molecular material. The protostars still retain the primordial substructuring of the parental cloud. We find the protostars to be separated by regular intervals that are consistent with the Jeans length for the average density of the associated molecular material, suggesting that thermal fragmentation played an important role during the star forming process in this region.

The figure shows a false color image of this young region built from MIPS 24 micron (red), IRAC 8 micron (green), and IRAC 3.6 micron (blue) data.

PT acknowledges support from the scholarship SFRH/BD/13984/2003 FCT, Portugal.

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