Star formation in W5: Spitzer observations

We detect dense clusters of stars, centered on the O stars HD 18326, BD +60 586, HD 17505, and HD 17520. At 24um, substantial extended emission is visible, presumably from heated dust grains that survive in the strongly ionizing environment of the HII region.

With photometry of more than 18000 point sources, we analyze the clustering properties of objects classified as young stars by their IR spectral energy distributions (a total of 2064 sources) across the region using a minimal-spanning-tree algorithm. We find ~40%-70% of infrared excess sources belong to clusters with >=10 members. We find that within the evacuated cavities of the HII regions that make up W5, the ratio of Class II to Class I sources is ~7 times higher than for objects coincident with molecular gas as traced by ^12^CO emission and near-IR extinction maps.