The high latitude low mass star forming region Cometary Globule 12: two compact cores and a C18O hot spot

Cometary globule CG 12 lies at the distance of 630 pc more than 200 pc above the Galactic plane. The cloud's structure could be due to the passage of a supernova blast wave. Curiously, the cometary tail points at the galactic plane which would put the putative supernova even farther above the Galactic plane than the globule. The globule contains a low/intermediate mass stellar cluster with at least 9 members (Williams et al. 1977). The head of CG 12 has been observed using NIR imaging (NTT SOFI), mm continuum (SEST SIMBA) and sub mm (APEX) and mm (SEST) spectroscopy (Haikala & Olberg 2006, Haikala et al.). The molecular material is distributed in a North-South 10' long elongated lane with two compact maxima separated by 3'. Strong C¹⁸O (3-2), (2-1) and (1-0) emission is detected in both maxima and both have an associated compact 1.2 mm continuum source. The Northern core, CG 12 N, is cold and is possibly still pre-stellar. A dense and compact core is observed in DCO⁺ and CS emission in the direction of the Southern core, CG 12 S. A remarkable C¹⁸O hot spot was detected in CG 12 S. This is the first detection of such a compact, warm object in a low mass star forming region. The hot spot can be modelled with a 60″ to 80″ diameter (~0.2 pc) hot (80 K ≲ T_ex≲ 100 K) 1.6 solar mass clump (Haikala et al. 2006). The hot spot lies at the edge of a dense cloud core and on the axis of a highly collimated bipolar molecular outflow (White 1993). The driving source of the outflow is most probably embedded in the dense core. NIR imaging reveals a bright cone like feature with a faint counter cone in the centre of CG 12 S. The size of the CG 12 compact head, 1.1 pc by 1.8 pc, and the C¹⁸O mass larger than 100 solar masses are comparable to those of other nearby low/intermediate mass star formation regions.