from 3 - Observations and Models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
We present spectroscopic and imaging observations of dust and gas emission from the western edge of the ρ Ophiuchus molecular cloud facing the B2 III/IV star HD 147889. The emissions from dust heated by the external UV radiation, from collisionally excited and fluorescent H2 are resolved and observed to coincide spatially. The spectroscopic data allows to estimate the gas temperature to 350 ± 30 K in the H2 emitting layer. In the framework of a steady state model of the photo-dissociation region, a high formation rate: 210−16cm3s−1 at 350 K, seems to be required to account for this temperature. For smaller formation rates the H2 emitting layer moves into the cloud where the gas is colder due to radiation attenuation.
Introduction
ISO observations of the dust emission and H2 rotational lines are bringing a new perspective on the structure and physical conditions in regions of H2 photodissociation (PDRs) at the surface of molecular clouds illuminated by hot stars. Spectroscopic observations of bright PDRs such as NGC 2023 have allowed to build detailed excitation diagrams of H2 with numerous lines to test physical models (Draine this conference). In this paper, we present observations of a fainter PDR on the western edge of the ρ Ophiuchus molecular cloud heated by the B2III/IV star HD 147889. This is a nearby PDR (d = 135±15 pc from the star parallax) with an edge-on geometry where the observations allow to spatially resolve the layer of UV light penetration and of H2 photo-dissociation.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.