The Distances and Origins of the High Velocity Hydrogen Clouds

夏威夷大学的Antoinette博士和Lennox Cowie博士将利用对星际光谱线的观测来确定中性原子氢气到高速云团的距离。大约10%的银河系天空被中性原子氢的高速云覆盖，但它们的来源和位置20年来一直难以捉摸。无论它们的起源是什么，它们都可能是一个非常有趣的现象，这可能对我们理解星系的演化以及星际介质的能量和质量平衡很重要。高速云团缺失的关键是对它们距离的了解。考伊夫妇的项目旨在确定这些距离。

Drs. Antoinette and Lennox Cowie at the University of Hawaii will use observations of interstellar spectral lines to determine the distances to high velocity clouds of neutral atomic hydrogen gas. Approximately 10 percent of the Galactic sky is covered by high velocity clouds of neutral atomic hydrogen, but their origin and location has remained elusive for twenty years. No matter what their origin, they are potentially an extremely interesting phenomenon which may be important to our understanding of galaxy evolution and the energy and mass balance of the interstellar medium. The missing key to the high velocity clouds is a knowledge of their distances. The Cowies' project is aimed at determining those distances.