Related papers: The interstellar cloud surrounding the Sun: a new …
The properties of interstellar clouds near the Sun are ordered by the Loop I superbubble and by the interstellar radiation field. Comparisons of the kinematics and magnetic field of the interstellar gas flowing past the Sun, including the…
Molecular hydrogen clouds are a key component of the interstellar medium because they are the birthplaces for stars. They are embedded in atomic gas that pervades the interstellar space. However, the details of how molecular clouds assemble…
The Sun lies in the middle of an enormous cavity of a million degree gas, known as the Local Bubble. The Local Bubble is surrounded by a wall of denser neutral and ionized gas. The Local Bubble extends around 100 pc in the plane of Galaxy…
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…
We identify 814 discrete HI clouds in 40 dwarf irregular galaxies from the LITTLE THINGS survey using an automated cloud-finding algorithm. The cloud masses range from ~10^3 to 10^7 Msolar, have a surface density averaged over all of the…
The galactic environment of the Sun varies over short timescales as the Sun and interstellar clouds travel through space. Small variations in the dynamics, ionization, density, and magnetic field strength of the interstellar medium (ISM)…
We describe the interface between the outer heliosphere and the local interstellar medium (LISM) surrounding the Sun. The components of the inner LISM are the four partially ionized clouds [the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), G cloud, Blue…
We have constructed three-dimensional models for the equilibrium abundance of molecular hydrogen within diffuse interstellar clouds of arbitrary geometry that are illuminated by ultraviolet radiation. The position-dependent photo-…
Over the recent past, the galactic environment of the Sun has differed substantially from today. Sometime within the past ~130,000 years, and possibly as recent as ~56,000 years ago, the Sun entered the tenuous tepid partially ionized…
Obtaining a complete census of gas in the local interstellar medium (<100 pc) is challenging given the limited available tracers of the warm, partially-ionized medium. Medium-to-high resolution UV absorption spectroscopy toward individual…
The diffuse interstellar medium is dynamic, and its chemistry and evolution is determined by shock fronts as well as photodissociation. Shocks are implied by the supersonic motions and velocity dispersion often statistically called…
This paper reviews past research and new studies underway of the local interstellar environment and its changing influence on the heliosphere. The size, shape, and physical properties of the heliosphere outside of the heliopause are…
There is mounting evidence for an extra-planar gas layer around the Milky Way disk, similar to the anomalous HI gas detected in a few other galaxies. As much as 10% of the gas may be in this phase. We analyze HI clouds located in the…
Recent observations in the 21cm line with the Green Bank Telescope have changed our view of the neutral interstellar medium (ISM) in several ways. The new data show that in the inner parts of the Milky Way the disk-halo interface is…
Molecular clouds (MC) are structures of dense gas in the interstellar medium (ISM), that extend from ten to a few hundred parsecs and form the main gas reservoir available for star formation. Hydrodynamical simulations of varying complexity…
The low density interstellar medium (ISM) close to the Sun and inside of the heliosphere provides a unique laboratory for studying interstellar dust grains. Grain characteristics in the nearby ISM are obtained from observations of…
The heliosphere serves as a probe of interstellar material (ISM) close to the Sun. Measurements of ISM inside and outside of the heliosphere show that we reside in typical warm partially ionized ISM that can be successfully modeled using…
In order to investigate the origin of the interstellar turbulence, detailed observations in the CO J=1--0 and 3--2 lines have been carried out in an interacting region of a molecular cloud with an HII region. As a result, several 1,000 to…
The content of interstellar clouds, in particular the inventory of diffuse molecular gas, remains uncertain. We identified a sample of isolated clouds, approximately 100 solar masses in size, and used the dust content to estimate the total…
We present new calculations of the photoionization of interstellar matter within ~5 pc of the Sun (which we refer to as the Complex of Local Interstellar Clouds or CLIC) by directly observed radiation sources including nearby hot stars and…