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S. I. B. Cartledge (LSU), J. T. Lauroesch, D. M. Meyer (NU), G. C. Clayton (LSU)
We present preliminary HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) measurements of Kr I 1236 in four sight lines extending up to 4.8 kpc through the Galactic disk. Previous determinations of the interstellar krypton abundance using STIS and Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph data have been dominated by sight lines confined to the local spiral arm, the Orion Spur. The resulting gas-phase Kr/H ratios implied a uniform total abundance in the local ISM, since the noble gas krypton is expected to be undepleted in the ISM. The new spectra we present are for three sight lines extending through the Carina/Sagittarius Arm and one through the Perseus Arm. We find that the Kr/H abundance ratios for these four paths are consistent with the distribution of local measurements, suggesting that the local homogeneity of ISM abundances, to the limits set by observational uncertainty, can be extended to distances of a few kiloparsecs.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.