A large molecular cloud toward the SNR W50 and SS 433
Y. L. Huang, T. M. Dame, P. Thaddeus;
ApJ, 1983, 272, 609
ABSTRACT:The CO 1 yields 0 transition at 115 GHz has been mapped over an area of more than 6 deg sq toward W50, the extended SNR surrounding the
peculiar object SS 433.
W50 is found to lie at the end of a filamentary molecular
cloud 4 deg long and 1 deg wide that closely matches a conspicuous dust lane on
the Palomar Sky Survey; the cloud's kinematic distance is within 0.7 of 2.2
kpc, in agreement with the distance 2-3.3 kpc estimated for the SNR, and its
mass is about 120,000 solar masses.
Though there is little evidence of star
formation in the molecular filament, or evidence of an interaction between the
filament and W50 (or SS 433), the positional coincidence of the two, their
similar distance, and their displacement nearly two molecular scale heights
from the plane all suggest a physical relationship or common origin.
One
possibility is that both the molecular filament and the stellar progenitor of W50
were ejected from a large active molecular complex lying in the plane at l = 40
deg.
KEYWORDS: molecular clouds, nebulae, radio astronomy, supernova remnants, carbon monoxide, sky surveys (astronomy), stellar evolution
PERSOKEY:co, h2, supershell, ,
CODE: huang83