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Interstellar Formaldehyde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

Patrick Palmer
Patrick Palmer*
Affiliation:
Universitiy of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.

Extract

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Formaldehyde (H2CO) was found to be present in the interstellar medium less than 1½ yr ago. This discovery raised a number of new astrophysical problems specific to H2CO such as how is the molecule formed, how is it destroyed, and how do the anomalous energy level populations leading to absorption of the isotropic microwave background arise. In addition, H2CO has provided a new means of studying several problems of long standing interest in astronomy. These include large scale galactic structure, distribution and motions of local gas and dust, and isotopic abundance ratios. A surprisingly large amount of work has been done on these problems in the rather short time since the initial discovery. I will confine myself to a brief summary of the observational aspects, omitting many of the topics that will be discussed in more detail by others later today, and then describe in detail some of our more recent work.

Type
III. Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 2: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XIVth General Assembly of the IAU, 1970 , 1971 , pp. 394 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1971

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