The Structure of Cirrus Clouds at Different Galactic Altitudes

Details The Structure of Cirrus Clouds at Different Galactic Altitudes The Structure of Cirrus Clouds at Different Galactic Altitudes

Jul 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001esasp.460..431h&link_type=abstract

The Promise of the Herschel Space Observatory. Eds. G.L. Pilbratt, J. Cernicharo, A.M. Heras, T. Prusti, & R. Harris. ESA-SP 460

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Interstellar Medium (Ism): Clouds, Ism: Abundances, Stars: Formation

Scientific paper

Galactic cirrus clouds, often also called high-latitude clouds, span a wide range of physical parameters. Some of them appear to consist of pure atomic gas; other are partly molecular. Cirrus clouds can be separated into three classes depending on their radial velocities: low-, intermediate- and high-velocity clouds. The origin of the last two classes is completely unknown. The different distances to the plane of our Galaxy make cirrus clouds ideal targets, to study the formation and structure of molecular clouds in different environments and also to probe the structure of our Galaxy and its halo. They might help to answer the questions, how the structure of a molecular cloud influences the formation of stars and how it is linked to the IMF. Much of the cloud structure can be deduced from the transition region from H to H2 and from C+ over C to CO. We have therefore set up a program to study cirrus clouds in the fine structure lines of neutral and ionized atomic carbon and various molecular transitions. We describe the status of this project and discuss why e.g. spectrally resolved [CII] observations, as possible with HIFI on board of FIRST, are needed to learn more about the structure of the clouds and about their environment.

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