Molecular Mountains of the Milky Way

大多数恒星都是在与其他恒星一起诞生的小星团中。因此，这些星系团是星系的基本组成部分。这些星团最初是分子气体云，经过数百万年的时间变成恒星。关于星团形成的一些基本问题仍在争论中，包括“它究竟需要多长时间”？以及“云中有多少气体变成了星团”？基于他们之前对分子云分布的观察，他们认为分子云的形成时间相对较长。在这种恒星形成缓慢的假设下，他们将把在银河系中探测到的分子类型与分子之间的化学关系进行比较。他们将根据他们的观察结果找到正确的化学模型。他们有数千小时的先前观察，他们将用这些观察来回答这些问题。此外，他们将以一种对其他研究恒星形成的天文学家有用的方式全面校准数据。因为他们测量了我们银河系中心的大部分，他们将把小尺度的化学结构与我们银河系的大尺度结构联系起来。在更大的、星系大小的尺度上，还有许多悬而未决的问题，涉及到恒星如何从小的星团中移动，以及在这个过程中，如何破坏作为恒星诞生地的分子云。这项研究将被整合到教学活动中，包括他每年在佛罗里达大学为数百名学生教授的天文学入门课程《发现宇宙》的补充内容。他们将根据这项研究开发一种新的公共宣传演讲，名为“银河系的分子山”，将在当地学校和他在佛罗里达自然历史博物馆帮助组织的星夜公共宣传活动中进行展示。此外，该提案将直接有助于培养两名博士生。主要的研究成果之一将是分子线调查数据，通过互联网向天文学界公开。在这个提议期间，PI将在佛罗里达组织一次关于恒星形成的国际会议，其中一部分将专门讨论将恒星形成与银河系结构联系起来的银河平面调查的结果。

The majority of stars are born in small clusters with other stars. These clusters are thus the basic building blocks of galaxies. These clusters start out as clouds of molecular gas, which turn into stars over millions of years. A number of fundamental questions about star cluster formation are still debated, including "exactly how long does it take"? and "how much of the gas in the clouds turned into clusters stars"?Based on their previous observations of the distribution of molecular clouds, they have argued for relatively long formation times. With this assumption of slow star formation, they will compare the types of molecules detected in our galaxy with the chemical relationships between the molecules. They will match their observations to find the correct chemical models. They have thousands of hours of previous observations which they will use to answer these questions. Also they will fully calibrate the data in a manner useful to other astronomers studying star formation.Because they have measurements of a large part of the center of our galaxy, they will relate the chemical structure on small scales with our galaxy's large scale structure. On the larger, galaxy-sized, scales there are also many open issues related to the basic question of how star move from small clusters, and in the process, destroying the molecular clouds which were the birthplaces of the stars.This research will be integrated into the teaching activities, including additions to the introductory astronomy course, Discover the Universe, he teaches each year to hundreds of students at the University of Florida. They will develop a new public outreach presentation based on this research, entitled "Molecular Mountains of the Milky Way", which will be presented in local schools and at the Starry Night public outreach event he helps organize at the Florida Museum of Natural History. In addition, this proposal will directly contribute towards the training of two Ph.D. students. One of the main research products will be the molecular line survey data, made publicly available to the astronomical community via the internet. During this proposal period the PI will organize an international conference on star formation in Florida, part of which will be devoted to the results from Galactic plane surveys that connect star formations to the structure of our Galaxy.