The paper “Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar” (Goicoechea et al. 2016) recently published in Nature, has put Astrochemistry and NANOCOSMOS in the leading edge forefront of many research institutIons, newspapers and mass media. A few examples can be found below:
Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM)
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP)
A legacy program to map the far-IR fine structure line of C+ at 158 microns with the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been recently awarded to a small international team led by Prof. Tielens (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands) and including 3 members of the NANOCOSMOS project, Dr. J. R. Goicoechea (ICMM-CSIC), Dr. O. Berné (IRAP, CNRS) and Prof. J. Cernicharo (ICMM-CSIC). The observing time to map the Orion molecular cloud will be more than 50 hours, which means several flights on board SOFIA!!
![[CII] 158μm emission image taken by Herschel with the locations of famous regions in the cloud identified (Goicoechea et al. 2015)](http://nanocosmos.iff.csic.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/plotmap_Cplus_PR.jpg)
The ionized carbon emission dominates the gas cooling of the low density interstellar medium and it is the brightest emission line in the IR spectrum of galaxies. In the next 2 years, astronomers will use the instrument upGREAT flying on board SOFIA to map an area of more than 20 times the central region of Orion recently observed with the Herschel Space Telescope (Goicoechea et al. 2015, ApJ, 812, 75, see the publications section). This project will allow to uniquely determine the use of the C+ line as a star formation rate indicator, derive the amount of molecular cloud mass not measured by CO (so-called “CO-dark” gas), and semi-empirically determine the photo-electric heating efficiency on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and interstellar dust grains.
The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) consisting of a custom-modified Boeing 747SP aircraft with an effective aperture of 2.5 m mounted in an open cavity towards the tail of the aircraft.
Two NANOCOSMOS members, Prof. José Cernicharo and Dr. Javier R. Goicoechea gave two invited talks at this workshop in Poland. José Cernicharo showed the NANOCOSMOS latests results from the ALMA observations of the archetypical AGB carbon-star IRC+10216. The NANOCOSMOS team has published 4 articles (see publications) on these results (including IRAM observations) and new exciting results are expected for the coming months. Javier R. Goicoechea talked about the velocity-resolved [CII] emission and [CII]/FIR mapping along Orion. The [CII] 158μm fine structure line is arising in gas irradiated by UV-photons from the Trapezium cluster and contributes significantly to the cooling of the cold neutral medium. These observations in combination with Far-Infrared photometric images of the dust emission and maps of the H41α hydrogen recombination and CO provide an unprecedented close view (0,16 light-years in resolution) of the Orion Cloud surrounding the Trapezium. Stay tuned¡
Following the previous post on the IRAM 30m. Summerschool on Millimeter Astronomy, Dr. Javier R. Goicoechea will be one of the nine invited lecturers at the School. Our outstanding researcher will give a lecture on the Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium with a special enphasis on the prototypical regions: SgrB2 and Orion KL. These objects are the brightest Far-Infrared regions in the sky. SgrB2 is one of the most massive star-forming regions in the Galaxy and it is associated to a giant and dense molecular cloud in the Galaxy nucleus. Orion KL is the closest most active star-forming region in the galactic disc and it is also associated to a dense giant molecular cloud.