On the fate of galactic centre molecular clouds.
Abstract
One third of the CO-emitting gas within 500 pc of the Galactic Center is in a few massive clouds. If these clouds have masses of the expected order 3,000,000 solar masses), even the outermost is doomed to spiral into the center within 1 Gyr. The subsequent evolution is unclear, but it will almost certainty be violent. This suggests that the Galactic center is subjected to starbursts.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- January 1991
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/248.1.14P
- Bibcode:
- 1991MNRAS.248P..14S
- Keywords:
-
- Galactic Nuclei;
- Milky Way Galaxy;
- Molecular Clouds;
- Carbon Monoxide;
- Galactic Bulge;
- Gas Flow;
- Interstellar Gas;
- Star Formation;
- Astrophysics