1. Infrared Identification of Forming Solar Systems in Other Galaxies Sweta Shah Ithaca College Advisor: Dr. Luke Keller Physics Department Small Magellanic Cloud Image credit: NASA/ESA

2. Stars (AeBe?) in SMC Spectral Energy Distribution & Disk Geometry (Malfait et al. 1998) UV mm

3. What we Did Spitzer Survey of SMC Small Magellanic Cloud Image credit: NASA/ESA Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) Dwarf galaxy 60 kpc away (~10 16 meters) low metallicity

4. Are they really HAeBe stars? Colour Colour Diagram (de Wit et al. 2003)

5. Metallicity Effect in SMC

6. 2MASS K-band Images (Spitzer Archives) Spectral Energy Distributions (Shah and Keller) ESHCs detected in the S 3 MC mid infrared survey

7. Are these actually Herbig AeBe stars? Brightness of stars in metal poor environments should be higher (Lammers 1999, de Witt 2003) SMC Herbig AeBe candidates’ disks How different is the ESHC dust relative to the Galactic HAeBe stars? Can we characterize the gas in these disks? Remaining Questions / Issues Submitted a Proposal for follow-up space-based observations - Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph in February 2007. Also submitted Proposal for ground- based data – Gemini in March 2007. On Going Work

8. Thanks (sshah1@ithaca.edu)