Abstract
Young associations hold a star formation record that can persist for millions of years, revealing the progression of star formation long after the dispersal of the natal cloud. Through the SPYGLASS program we are expanding the local star formation record by mapping the extensive and often poorly characterized network of clusters and associations in the solar neighborhood. Our published Gaia DR2-based study has already revealed dozens of new associations and subgroups, and recent updates to Gaia DR3 have expanded our survey to include 116 young associations within 1 kpc, many of which are entirely new. This extensive sample provides insight into the large-scale structure of the solar neighborhood while also providing numerous readily-accessible young populations to study more localized star formation patterns. Dozens of new associations and features have already been targeted with spectroscopic observations, which provide measurements of youth indicators and radial velocities covering thousands of candidate members. These observations provide age estimates and kinematic traceback, which combine to show the formation history in exquisite detail. New results in Cepheus Far North and the Austral Complex are demonstrating that even for closely intertwined populations, dynamical traceback often reveals multiple distinct nodes in which co-spatial star formation takes place. Especially in crowded regions with multiple young stellar populations, these nodes may represent the clearest discrete unit of star formation, making them potentially critical in understanding patterns of star formation on large scales. This talk outlines the latest updates to the SPYGLASS project, combining our large-scale and statistical view of the solar neighborhood with region-level analyses to provide an unprecedented view of the processes shaping local star formation.
