Spitzer/IRAC-MIPS survey of NGC 2244

The 24um-8um-3.6um color composite image of the region shows that the central cavity surrounding the multiple O and B stars of NGC 2244 contains a large amount of cool dust visible only at 24um. Our survey gives a detailed look at disk survivability within the hot-star-dominated environment in this cavity.

Using mid-infrared two-color diagrams ([3.6]-[4.5] vs. [5.8]-[8.0]), we identified 337 class II and 25 class I objects out of 1084 objects detected in all four of these bands with photometric uncertainty better than 10%. Including the 24um data, we found 213 class II and 20 class I sources out of 279 stars also detected at this latter band. The center of the class II density contours is in very good agreement with the center of the cluster detected in the 2MASS images.