THE ORION MOLECULAR CLOUDS ARE AN ESSENTIAL LABORATORY FOR STUDYING LOW MASS STAR FORMATION OVER THE BROAD RANGE OF ENVIRONMENTS IN WHICH THEY FORM. STARTING WITH THE SPITZER SURVEY OF ORION IN 2004 MORE THAN A DECADE OF OBSERVATIONS WITH SPITZER WISE HST AND HERSCHEL HAVE ACCUMULATED AN UNPARALLELED CHARACTERIZATION OF THE YOUNG STELLAR OBJECT (YSO) POPULATION IN ORION. AS PART OF SPITZER CYCLE 13 WE HAVE OBTAINED A FINAL EPOCH OF SPITZER OBSERVATIONS COVERING 9 SQ DEGREES OF THE ORION A AND B CLOUDS WITH THE GOALS OF PROBING THE DYNAMICS AND VARIABILITY OF 3500 YSOS DETECTED IN THE 2004 SPITZER SURVEY. WITH THE FINAL EPOCH SURVEY WE WILL 1.) PERFORM A CENSUS OF HIGH PROPER MOTION YOUNG STARS EJECTED FROM CLUSTERS AND BY THE DECAY NONHIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE SYSTEMS 2.) MEASURE THE BULK PROPER MOTIONS OF GROUPS AND CLUSTERS OF STARS TO TEST MODELS OF CLUSTER FORMATION 3.) MEASURE THE VARIABILITY OF YSOS OVER AN ALMOST 13 YEAR BASELINE 4.) CONSTRAIN THE RATE OF LUMINOUS ACCRETION DRIVEN OUTBURSTS FROM BOTH PROTOSTARS AND PREMAIN SEQUENCE STARS WITH DISKS AND 5.) USE PROPER MOTIONS OF IR HERBIGHARO KNOTS AS A FOSSIL RECORD OF PREVIOUS ACCRETION EVENTS. THIS PROGRAM WILL COMPLETE AN UNPARALLELED >12 YEAR MULTIEPOCH 3.6 AND 4.5 MICRON STUDY OF THE NEAREST LARGE MOLECULAR CLOUD COMPLEX WITH A COMBINATION OF WIDE SPATIAL COVERAGE HIGH SENSITIVITY ~2 ANGULAR RESOLUTION AND UNIFORMITY THAT WILL NOT BE EXCEEDED IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. IT WILL PLACE UNIQUE CONSTRAINTS ON THE HIGHLY DYNAMIC PROCESSES THAT CONTROL LOW MASS STAR FORMATION SERVE AS A PATHFINDER TO MOLECULAR CLOUD SURVEYS OF WFIRST AND PROVIDE WELL CHARACTERIZED TARGETS NEEDED TO STUDY MASS ACCRETION AROUND YOUNG LOW MASS STARS WITH SOFIA AND JWST. WE REQUEST FUNDING TO ANALYZE THIS SPITZER CYCLE 13 PROGRAM COMPLETED IN JUNE 2017. THE PROPER MOTION ANALYSIS IS PARTICULARLY CHALLENGING AND REQUIRES THE ADDITION OF AN REFINED ASTROMETRIC SOLUTION AND THE CAPABILITY TO DO POINT RESPONSE FUNCTION FITTING TO OUR EXISTING DATA REDUCTION PIPELINE. THIS ANALYSIS MUST ALSO BE DONE ON THE SPITZER-CRYO/ IRAC DATA FROM 2004 AS WELL AS SPITZER-WARM/IRAC OBSERVATIONS IN 2010 AND 2011 TO OBTAIN ACCURATE PROPER MOTIONS AND CONSISTENT PHOTOMETRY FOR VARIABILITY STUDIES.
$395,575FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
University Of Toledo, Toledo OH