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A large portion
of interstellar gas in a spiral galaxy is molecular hydrogen and much
is contained in a part of the galaxy called the giant molecular cloud.
Carbon-monoxide also has a high abundance in these regions and is one
of the easier parts of the region to study. Carbon-monoxide can be detected
with even small telescope because of the frequency at which it emits.
Carbon-monoxide has been used to show that most star formation occurs
in molecular clouds. Giant molecular clouds form primarily in the arms
of spiral galaxies. They can be detected when warm dust emits in the infrared.
Large scale surveys were taken of carbon-monoxide over the entire galaxy
using a 1.2 m telescope and produced many interesting results. Carbon-monoxide
was used to study many features of the galaxy. The spiral arms, dark clouds
below the galactic plane, the Cepheus and Polaris Flares (high-latitude
clouds), molecular clouds, star forming regions, the galactic center,
and different types of nebulae, were among some of the regions studied.
Carbon-monoxide makes it easy to distinguish large-scale structural features
of the galaxy. The images are a graph of Carbon-monoxide emission and
its corresponding optical counterpart. (Courtesy of Axel Mellinger;
Courtesy of the twin 1.2 meter radio telescope of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Observatory.)
References:
Dame, T.M. and Dap Hartman and P.Thaddeus "The Milky Way in Molecular
Clouds."
http://canopus.physik.uni-potsdam.de/~axm/images.html#mwpan
Object |
Distance from Earth |
Wavelength |
Milky Way Panorama |
100
to 50,000 light years |
Radio |
