Insights on molecular cloud structure

Autor(en)

João Alves, Marco Lombardi, Charles Lada

Abstrakt

Stars form in the densest regions of clouds of cold molecular hydrogen.

Measuring structure in these clouds is far from trivial as 99% of the

mass of a molecular cloud is inaccessible to direct observation. Over

the last decade we have been developing an alternative, more robust

density tracer technique based on dust extinction measurements towards

background starlight. The new technique does not suffer from the

complications plaguing the more conventional molecular line and dust

emission techniques, and when used with these can provide unique views

on cloud chemistry and dust grain properties in molecular clouds. In

this brief communication we summarize the main results achieved so far

using this technique.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Astrophysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Band

270

Seiten

99-102

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743921311000238

Publikationsdatum

04-2011

ÖFOS 2012

103004 Astrophysik

Schlagwörter

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