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Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite observations of extended water emission in Orion
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
  • Ronald L. Snell, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • JE Howe
  • MLN Ashby
  • EA Bergin
  • G Chin
  • NR Erickson, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • PF Goldsmith
  • M Harwit
  • SC Kleiner
  • DG Koch
  • DA Neufeld
  • BM Patten
  • R Plume
  • R Schieder
  • JR Stauffer
  • V Tolls
  • Z Wang
  • G Winnewisser
  • YF Zhang
  • GJ Melnick
Publication Date
2000
Abstract

We have used the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite to map the ground-state 110 → 101 transition of ortho-H2O at 557 GHz in the Orion molecular cloud. H2O emission was detected in Orion over an angular extent of about 20', or nearly 3 pc. The water emission is relatively weak, with line widths (3-6 km s-1) and VLSR velocities (9-11 km s-1) consistent with an origin in the cold gas of the molecular ridge. We find that the ortho-H2O abundance relative to H2 in the extended gas in Orion varies between 1 and 8 × 10-8, with an average of 3 × 10-8. The absence of detectable narrow-line ortho-H218O emission is used to set a 3 σ upper limit on the relative ortho-H2O abundance of 7 × 10-8.

Comments

This is the pre-published version harvested from ArXiv. The published version is located at http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/539/2/L93

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1086/312855
Pages
L93-L96
Citation Information
Ronald L. Snell, JE Howe, MLN Ashby, EA Bergin, et al.. "Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite observations of extended water emission in Orion" ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL Vol. 539 Iss. 2 (2000)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ronald_snell/7/