Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005aas...207.4006r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 207, #40.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.1225
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We have used the VLBA to determine a trigonometric parallax for W3OH, a massive star forming region in the Perseus spiral arm, with an accuracy of 10 micro-arcseconds. W3OH is at a distance of 1.953 ± 0.04 kpc. This resolves a long-standing difference between kinematic distances (>4 kpc) and O-star luminosity distances (≈2.2 kpc) to this region of the Perseus arm. The O-star luminosity distances are correct and this region is strongly kinematically anomalous. We have also measured the proper motion of W3OH, relative to extragalactic sources, and find a peculiar motion of 22 km/s directed inward and counter to Galactic rotation. This is in qualitative agreement with spiral density wave theory, but seems larger than expected for reasonably density enhancements. We are now conducting a large program with the VLBA to determine parallaxes and proper motions to a sample of a dozen massive star forming regions. The goals of this project are to determine the locations of spiral arms of the Galaxy and to test the spiral density wave paradigm.
Menten Karl. M.
Reid Mark J.
Xu Yadong
Zheng Xing-Wu
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