Neutral hydrogen filaments at high galactic latitudes. III - The nature of enhanced emission features ('clouds')
G. L. Verschuur;
ApSS, 1991, 185, 305

ABSTRACT:Attention is given to the hypothesis that an enhanced emission feature (EEF) is created when a segment of flux-tube is viewed end-on and that previously published properties of H I 'clouds' may be meaningless. It is shown that there is nothing random about the distribution of interstellar H I. Every EEF in the region studied was found to be associated with a filament. Interpretation of IR 100-micron cirrus data without reference to narrow-band H I velocity information produces incorrect impressions of the physical cause of the cirrus structure. The small-scale distribution of interstellar H I, dust, and molecules may appear chaotic, but it contains a profound underlying order. It is concluded that much of what is observed to be 'cloud' structure in the interstellar medium, except in regions directly associated with star formation, sheds light on the geometry of filaments and not on the physics of 'clouds.'
KEYWORDS: h i regions, hydrogen, neutral gases, radio emission, astronomical maps, milky way galaxy, radio astronomy, spatial distribution
PERSOKEY:h_i, 21 cm, cirrus, ,
CODE: verschuur91a