NRAO: Clues to Origin of Milky Way Gas Clouds

[bystander]

Astronomers Discover Clue to Origin of Milky Way Gas Clouds
National Radio Astronomy Observatory - 26 May 2010

Surprising discovery gives important information about critical process in galaxy evolution

A surprising discovery that hydrogen gas clouds found in abundance in and above our Milky Way Galaxy have preferred locations has given astronomers a key clue about the origin of such clouds, which play an important part in galaxy evolution.
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The astronomers studied gas clouds in two distinct regions of the Galaxy. The clouds they studied are between 400 and 15,000 light-years outside the disk-like plane of the Galaxy. The disk contains most of the Galaxy's stars and gas, and is surrounded by a "halo" of gas more distant than the clouds the astronomers studied.
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When the astronomers compared the observations of the two regions, they saw that one region contained three times as many hydrogen clouds as the other. In addition, that region's clouds are, on average, twice as far above the Galaxy's plane.

The dramatic difference, they believe, is because the region with more clouds lies near the tip of the Galaxy's central "bar," where the bar merges with a major spiral arm. This is an area of intense star formation, containing many young stars whose strong winds can propel gas away from the region. The most massive stars also will explode as supernovae, blasting material outward. In the other region they studied, star formation activity is more sparse.
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The clouds consist of neutral hydrogen gas, with an average mass equal to that of about 700 Suns. Their sizes vary greatly, but most are about 200 light-years across. The astronomers studied about 650 such clouds in the two widely-separated regions of the Galaxy.

[bystander]

Bursting 'bubbles' the origin of galactic gas clouds
CSIRO 10/77 - 27 May 2010

Researchers using CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia have explained the origins of hydrogen gas clouds in the galaxy

Like bubbles bursting on the surface of a glass of champagne, ‘bubbles’ in our Galaxy burst and leave flecks of material in the form of clouds of hydrogen gas, researchers using CSIRO’s Parkes telescope have found.

Their study explains the origin of these clouds for the first time.

Swinburne University PhD student Alyson Ford (now at the University of Michigan) and her supervisors; Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths (CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science) and Felix Lockman (US National Radio Astronomy Observatory), have made the first detailed observations of ‘halo’ gas clouds in our Galaxy.

Just as Earth has an atmosphere, the main starry disk of our Galaxy is surrounded by a thinner halo of stars, gas and ‘dark matter’.

The halo clouds skim the surface of our Galaxy, sitting 400 to 10 000 light-years outside the Galactic disk. They are big: an average-sized cloud contains hydrogen gas 700 times the mass of the Sun and is about 200 light-years across.
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The researchers studied about 650 clouds and found striking differences between them in different areas of the Galaxy. One part of the Galaxy had three times as many clouds as another next to it, and the clouds were twice as thick.

The region with lots of thick clouds is where lots of stars form, while the region with fewer clouds also forms fewer stars.

But the halo clouds aren’t found exactly where stars are forming right now. Instead, they seem to be linked to earlier star formation.

Massive stars grow old quickly. After a few million years they shed material into space as a ’wind‘ and then explode.

This violence creates bubbles in the gas in space, like the holes in a Swiss cheese.