From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 05:35:40 MST
"The Sun should enter the Apex Cloud (a 'cloudlet' of the
Aquila-Ophiuchus cloud, located within 5 pc of the Sun) within
~10^4 years."
-------------------------------------------
http://it.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302037
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0302037
From: Priscilla Chapman Frisch <frisch@oddjob.uchicago.edu>
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 21:50:08 GMT (8kb)
Local Interstellar Matter: The Apex Cloud
*Authors:* P. C. Frisch
Several nearby individual low column density interstellar cloudlets
have been identified based on kinematical features evident in
high-resolution CaII observations near the Sun. One of these
cloudlets, the ``Aquila-Ophiuchus'' cloud, is within 5 pc of the Sun
and located in the solar apex direction. The velocity vector of this
Apex Cloud is reevaluated and components at this velocity are found
towards 17 stars with distances 1--60 pc, and located primarily in
the galactic center hemisphere. The AC has a heliocentric velocity
of ~--35 km/s, and is approaching the Sun from an upstream direction
close to the bulk flow of ISM past the Sun (Frisch et al. 2002).
Interstellar absorption consistent with the velocity of the AC is
seen towards the nearest star $\alpha$ Cen, resolving a long
standing puzzle and indicating that indeed this cloud will be the
next interstellar cloud encountered by the Sun. The Sun should enter
the AC within $\sim 10^4$ years.
-- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica delle Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps@ifsi.rm.cnr.it
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