Nature paper led by NANOCOSMOS members

The Nature Journal published yesterday a paper entitled “Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar”, led and with the participation of several members of our group.

One-arcsecond-resolution millimetre-wave images taken with ALMA enable the ‘skin’ of the Orion molecular cloud to be resolved. The stunning images reveal a fragmented ridge of high-density filamentary substructures, photoablative gas flows and instabilities that suggest that the cloud edge has been compressed by a high-pressure wave expanding into the molecular cloud. These results are in contrast to predictions from static equilibrium models and reveal a very dynamic UV-irradiated cloud edge.

Link to the paper: Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar. Nature Letters. Doi: 10.1038/nature18957