The "C": The large Chameleon-Musca-Coalsack cloud

Author(s)

Gordian Edenhofer, João Alves, Catherine Zucker, Laura Posch, Torsten A. Enßlin

Abstract

Recent advancements in 3D dust mapping have transformed our understanding of the Milky Way's local interstellar medium, enabling us to explore its structure in three spatial dimensions for the first time. In this Letter, we use the most recent 3D dust map by Edenhofer et al. to study the well-known Chameleon, Musca, and Coalsack cloud complexes, located about 200 pc from the Sun. We find that these three complexes are not isolated but rather connect to form a surprisingly well-defined half-ring, constituting a single C-shaped cloud with a radius of about 50 pc, a thickness of about 45 pc, and a total mass of about $5 \times 10^{4} \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$, or $9 \times 10^{4} \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ if including everything in the vicinity of the C-shaped cloud. Despite the absence of an evident feedback source at its center, the dynamics of young stellar clusters associated with the C structure suggest that a single supernova explosion about 4 Myr to 10 Myr ago likely shaped this structure. Our findings support a single origin story for these cloud complexes, suggesting that they were formed by feedback-driven gas compression, and offer new insights into the processes that govern the birth of star-forming clouds in feedback-dominated regions, such as the Scorpius-Centaurus association.

Organisation(s)

Department of Astrophysics

External organisation(s)

Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Excellence Cluster ORIGINS

Journal

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Volume

687

No. of pages

6

ISSN

0004-6361

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450374

Publication date

07-2024

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103004 Astrophysics, 103003 Astronomy

Keywords

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/3d4597d3-7ce9-4483-b635-5f72647709a6