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M. Kolpak, R. Simon, J.M. Jackson, D.P. Clemens, T.M. Bania (BU), M.H. Heyer (UMASS), M.P. Egan, S.D. Price (AFRL/VSBC)
We present a preliminary analysis of the data from the first two square degrees of the Milky Way Galactic Ring Survey (GRS), a 13CO and CS molecular line survey of the inner Galaxy.
The 13CO channel maps reveal an enormous amount of hitherto unresolved structure, partly due to the higher angular resolution and better sampling of the GRS compared to previous studies, but also due to the fact that the narrower linewidths of the more optically thin 13CO lines allow a better separation of velocity components.
Overlays of our new 13CO and CS data with an 8 micron infrared image obtained with the MSX satellite reveal a striking correlation. Because we can associate infrared sources with molecular clumps, we can estimate their distances kinematically. We aim to find kinematic distances to a large number of faint young stars and protostars in order to establish their luminosity functions and spatial distributions throughout the 5 kpc ring.
An extended 13CO cloud at roughly 20 km/s coincides remarkably well with extinction on the Digital Sky Survey image. Its large extent and association with optical extinction most likely places this filament at the near kinematic distance.
The Galactic Ring Survey is supported by NSF grant AST-9800334.
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s follows:
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