The Milky Way in Molecular Clouds: A New Complete CO Survey
Publication date: 01 February 2001
Authors: Dame, T.M., et al.
Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
Volume: 547
Issue: 2
Page: 792-813
Year: 2001
Copyright: IOP Publishing
(Abbreviated abstract)
New large-scale CO surveys of the first and second Galactic quadrants and the nearby molecular cloud complexes in Orion and Taurus, obtained with the CfA 1.2 m telescope, have been combined with 31 other surveys obtained over the past two decades with that instrument and a similar telescope on Cerro Tololo in Chile, to produce a new composite CO survey of the entire Milky Way. The survey consists of 488,000 spectra that Nyquist or beamwidth (1/8 °) sample the entire Galactic plane over a strip 4°-10° wide in latitude, and beamwidth 1/4 ° sample nearly all large local clouds at higher latitudes. Compared with the previous composite CO survey of Dame et al. (1987), the new survey has 16 times more spectra, up to 3.4 times higher angular resolution, and up to 10 times higher sensitivity per unit solid angle.
