Distances of Four High-Galactic Latitude Molecular Clouds

Details Distances of Four High-Galactic Latitude Molecular Clouds Distances of Four High-Galactic Latitude Molecular Clouds

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...209.8405m&link_type=abstract

2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #84.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, V

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The Sun is embedded within a large, irregularly-shaped region of plasma called the Local Bubble that formed when relatively nearby stars exploded as supernovae several million years ago. Lallement et al. (2003) have traced its convoluted boundary by using the equivalent widths of NaD lines in 1005 distant stars. To avoid directional bias, however, they intentionally avoided targeting stars that shared lines-of-sight with clouds visible on IR, X-ray, or radio maps. Thus, to complement their study, we have determined the distances and radial velocities of four molecular clouds that were also classified as soft X-ray shadows by Snowden et al. (2000). We targeted these objects since X-ray shadows are expected to lie at or near the bubble’s boundary. Thus, their distances and radial velocities provide information about the bubble’s edge. In addition, a small fraction of the clouds that are also shadows may prove to lie well within the bubble. The number and nature of such interlopers places constraints on the bubble’s history.
The clouds' distances and radial velocities were determined using moderately high-resolution spectra of 88 bright, early-type stars lying near the clouds. The spectra were obtained using the Sandiford Cassegrain-Echelle spectrograph of the 2.1m Otto Struve Telescope. We then searched the stars’ spectra for interstellar Na-D lines and used their known distances to bracket the distances to the clouds. We use the derived distances to calculate the density and pressure of the Local Bubble in the direction of these clouds.

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