AAS 196th Meeting, June 2000
Session 25. The Milky Way Galaxy
Display, Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 10:00am-6:30pm, Empire Hall South

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[25.06] The BU-FCRAO Milky Way Galactic Ring Survey: Determining the Distances to Infrared Point Sources

M.A. Kolpak, R. Simon, T.M. Bania, D.P. Clemens, J.M. Jackson, C.J. Law (BU), M.H. Heyer (UMASS), M.P. Egan, S.D. Price (AFRL/VSBC)

We present analysis of the first eight square degrees of the Milky Way Galactic Ring Survey (GRS), a 13CO molecular line survey of the inner Galaxy. Compact infrared sources identified by MSX and IRAS are often coincident with 13CO clumps. In addition, we find a number of 13CO shells surrounding unresolved infrared sources. Extended infrared emission also correlates well with extended 13CO emission.

By associating infrared point sources with 13CO emission, we can estimate their kinematic distances. We can resolve the near/far distance ambiguity using HI self-absorption data from the BUAO survey.

Once the distances to enough faint young stars and protostars have been estimated, we will determine their luminosity functions and spatial distributions throughout the inner Galaxy.

The Galactic Ring Survey is supported by NSF grant AST-9800334.


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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: spedro@bu.edu

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