Identification of Young Stellar Objects in the Lagoon Nebula (IDYL)

The goal of this project was to identify new young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Lagoon Nebula (M8; ~1250 pc). We collected from the literature 67 bands as published in 36 papers or surveys to compile a catalog of ~3200 literature YSOs. We examined the color properties of known YSOs in optical and infrared (IR) bands. The color characteristics of the known YSOs were used to identify new candidates based on the presence of IR excess, a result of the dust surrounding YSOs, and ultraviolet (UV) excess from accretion shock. Literature YSOs and the full M8 catalog were plotted on many optical and IR color-color diagrams. The initial candidate YSO list was selected from sources that showed IR excess in both WISE and IRAC, or IR excess in IRAC and UV excess (u-r) in VPHAS. The candidate list was then screened by examination of: • source images (looking for source confusion and source detections missing photometry); • spectral energy distributions (SEDs; looking for source mismatches across bands); and • color-color and color-magnitude diagrams (optical and IR; looking for consistency with colors found for known YSOs). We identified ~190 new YSO candidates.

Support provided for this work by the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP), which receives funding from the NASA ADP program.