THE DENSE MOLECULAR RIDGE IN NGC 2024
| Autor: | George F. Mitchell, Tomomi Watanabe |
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| Rok vydání: | 2008 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Astronomical Journal. 136:1947-1963 |
| ISSN: | 1538-3881 0004-6256 |
| Popis: | NGC 2024 is a star-forming region in Orion B that contains a dense molecular ridge. A number of dense cores are seen by their dust emission. This area is investigated using observations of four formaldehyde transitions—namely, 303 → 202, 322 → 221, 505 → 404, and 523 → 422. Maps of the ridge are used to provide temperatures and densities, with a focus on the dense-core positions. The formaldehyde transition ratios 303 → 202/322 → 221 and 505 → 404/523 → 422 offer measurements of the kinetic temperature, while the ratio 303 → 202/505 → 404 allows the evaluation of number densities. The resulting temperatures are very warm (45-85 K), with no observed variation between the core centers and their envelopes. H2CO number densities of ~2 × 106 cm–3 at far-infrared (FIR) core positions and H2CO column densities in the range of 6 × 1014 to 1 × 1015 cm–2 are derived. Using the derived properties in combination with previous submillimeter continuum data, core masses of ~2 M ☉ are found within a 15'' beam size. H2CO fractional abundances are calculated and resemble previous values found in similar star-forming regions—between 2 × 10–9 and 5 × 10–9. The virial theorem applied to FIR cores 3, 4, 5, and 6 suggests that all four cores are unstable against gravitational collapse. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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