CITA@40 Conference

Adventures in Conquering the Galaxy: Or, How I Went From Observer To Kinematicist

Not scheduled

20m

McLennan Physical Laboratories (60 St. George St.)

Oral

Speaker

Peter Barnes

Description

I present first results from a new meta-survey of the Galaxy's molecular cloud layer, the Combined Dense Gas and Excitation Atlas of the Milky Way, or CODEX. These include kinematic features needed to consistently revise models of the Galaxy's rotation, plus insights into the complete, 3D architecture of the molecular gas distribution across the inner Galaxy, particularly the existence of widespread, kpc-scale ripples in the midplane. Happily, recent deep data on the global dust extinction distribution within 2 kpc gives consistent and completely independent support for these new features. The prospect of revealing further Galactic treasures in the near future is bright.