Radcliffe wave

The Radcliffe wave is the nearest gaseous structure to the Solar System in the Milky Way galaxy.

It has many stellar nurseries. It stretches for about 8,800 light years.^[1]^[2] It runs the way of the Milky Way arms. At its closest (the Taurus Molecular Cloud) it is about 400 light-years. Its farthest is about 5000 light-years (the Cygnus X star complex) from us.

The wave is in the Local Arm (Orion Arm) itself, about 40% of its length and on average 20% of its width.^[3]^[4] Its discovery was announced in January 2020.^[1]

Overview

The Radcliffe wave contains four of the five Gould Belt clouds, the:

The cloud not within its scope is the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud complex. This is part of a linear structure parallel to the Radcliffe wave.

Other structures in the wave, further from our local star system, are Canis Major OB1, the North America Nebula and Cygnus X.^[4]

The nearby circa one-sixth outer sector of the galaxy, thus clearly showing the Local Arm (Orion Arm) and neighboring arms - as well as the Great Orion Nebula (as a very luminous feature of the less bright Orion Molecular Cloud Complex) and broad-clouds North America Nebula (and Pelican Nebula) which is an intrinsic part of the Radcliffe wave, (clickable map)

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 "Astronomers discover huge gaseous wave holding Milky Way's newest stars". The Guardian. 7 January 2020. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
↑ Rincon, Paul (7 January 2020). "Vast 'star nursery' region found in our galaxy". BBC News. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
↑ Brandon, Specktor (7 January 2020). "Mysterious 'wave' of star-forming gas may be the largest structure in the galaxy". livescience.com. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Alves, João; Zucker, Catherine; Goodman, Alyssa A.; Speagle, Joshua S.; Meingast, Stefan; Robitaille, Thomas; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Schlafly, Edward F.; Green, Gregory M. (January 2020). "A Galactic-scale gas wave in the Solar Neighborhood". Nature. 578 (7794): 237–239. arXiv:2001.08748. Bibcode:2020Natur.578..237A. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1874-z. PMID 31910431. S2CID 210086520.

[theguardian-sample-1] 1.0 ^1.1 "Astronomers discover huge gaseous wave holding Milky Way's newest stars". The Guardian. 7 January 2020. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 January 2020.

[bbc-2] Rincon, Paul (7 January 2020). "Vast 'star nursery' region found in our galaxy". BBC News. Retrieved 7 January 2020.

[3] Brandon, Specktor (7 January 2020). "Mysterious 'wave' of star-forming gas may be the largest structure in the galaxy". livescience.com. Retrieved 7 January 2020.

[:0-4] 4.0 ^4.1 Alves, João; Zucker, Catherine; Goodman, Alyssa A.; Speagle, Joshua S.; Meingast, Stefan; Robitaille, Thomas; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Schlafly, Edward F.; Green, Gregory M. (January 2020). "A Galactic-scale gas wave in the Solar Neighborhood". Nature. 578 (7794): 237–239. arXiv:2001.08748. Bibcode:2020Natur.578..237A. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1874-z. PMID 31910431. S2CID 210086520.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]