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We present observations of the 3 mm continuum and CO emission in the dwarf galaxy NGC 5253. NGC 5253 appears to be undergoing a recent burst of star formation which may be tidally induced by its companion, M83. These aperture synthesis maps were made with the Owens Valley Millimeter Array, and have a resolution of 12$^{\prime\prime}$ x 7$^{\prime\prime}$. There is strong thermal continuum emission at 3 mm at the location of the starburst. However the CO emission is extraordinarily weak. This indicates that CO is a poor tracer of the H$_2$ mass in this galaxy, since the high resolution of the maps rules out beam dilution as a cause of the low single dish CO temperatures. We present a value for the conversion factor from CO intensity to H$_2$ column density, $\rm I_{CO}/N_{H_2}$.
This work was supported in part by NSF grant AST90-22996.
