Spitzer survey of NGC 2451

We complement these data with extensive ground-based photometry and spectroscopy to identify the cluster members in the Spitzer survey field. We find only two members with 8um excesses.

The incidence of excesses at 24um is much higher, i.e., 11 of 31 solar-like stars and 1 of 7 early-type (A) stars. This work nearly completes the debris disk surveys with Spitzer of clusters in the 30-130Myr range. This range is of interest because it is when large planetesimal collisions may have still been relatively common (as indicated by the one that led to the formation of the Moon during this period of the evolution of the solar system).