Our next cloud

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 05:35:40 MST

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    "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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