MYStIX MIRES Catalog: 20,719 Infrared-Excess Sources in 18 Star-Forming Regions

20,719 infrared-excess sources identified across 18 massive star-forming complexes in the Milky Way, with distances ranging from 0.4 to 3.6 kiloparsecs. The MYStIX project, led by NASA, produced this catalog in 2013 to isolate 8,686 probable young stellar members from contaminants like evolved stars and nebular knots. Data combines photometry from Spitzer/IRAC, 2MASS, and UKIRT telescopes using spectral energy distribution fitting and spatial clustering.

Use Cases

• Classifying young stellar objects based on infrared spectral energy distributions mentioned in the description
• Analyzing spatial clustering of star-forming regions across 18 Galactic complexes
• Training models to distinguish stellar members from contaminating sources like extragalactic objects or evolved stars
• Cross-referencing infrared-excess sources with X-ray detections for multi-wavelength stellar membership studies

Strengths

• Catalog contains 20,719 sources with 8,686 identified as probable stellar members
• Covers 18 distinct massive star-forming regions across a distance range of 0.4 to 3.6 kpc
• Methodology consistently applied across all target fields using combined IR photometry and SED fitting

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Excludes the 9,365 IR counterparts to X-ray sources listed in a separate catalog

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), HEASARC

Collection Method

Infrared photometry from Spitzer/IRAC, 2MASS, and UKIRT combined with spectral energy distribution fitting and spatial clustering analysis

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:12:04.312415; freshness should be verified

Geography

20 Galactic massive star-forming complexes (e.g., NGC 2264, NGC 6357, M 17)