The Morphology of Interstellar Clouds in the Immediate Vicinity of the Sun

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The Sun is located within a complex of warm, partially ionized, clouds. It is this material that currently surrounds the heliosphere and determines its structure. Although the similarity in bulk velocity of these clouds points to a common origin, these clouds appear to have distinctly different temperatures, turbulent velocities, and dust depletion levels. I present a morphological model of the local interstellar medium (LISM), that includes 15 clouds within approximately 15 pc. In particular, I will present a revised model of the morphology of the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), the material that the Sun has been immersed in most recently (i.e., the last several 100,000 years). The LIC is the most well studied of the local clouds and has been identified in high resolution spectra of nearly 80 nearby stars. A global LISM morphological model can provide insight into the interactions of neighboring clouds that naturally result from variations in their bulk flow. Additionally, a fully three-dimensional morphological model will be necessary to understand the ionization structure of the LISM. Our understanding of the present-day heliosphere has significantly improved of the last several years. However, in order to characterize the past- or future-heliosphere, or analogous structures around other, potentially planet-bearing, nearby stars, it is critical to have a morphological and dynamical model of our local interstellar environment.
We acknowledge support for this project through NASA HST Grant GO-11568 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555.

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