MICROWAVE OBSERVATIONS OF METHANE IN THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM
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Date
1978
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Ohio State University
Abstract
Six distinct pure-rotational $\Delta J = 0$ transitions in $CH_{4}{^{1}}$ have been detected in emission from the Orion molecular cloud. (These transitions ate normally ``forbidden” in the vibronic ground state of tetrahedral $XY_{4}$ molecules.) Two of these microwave lines had been reported $previously^{2}$ The spectral frequencies in Orion A ranged from 4.6 to 82.9 GHz corresponding to J values from 11 to 20, respectively. The column density of $CH_{4}$ in Orion A is estimated to be very large, probably second only to $H_{2}$ which is the most abundant molecule detected there. Methane has also been observed in absorption in IRC + 10216 and RX Boo. The isotopic species $^{13}CH_{4}$ may have been detected in Orion A.
Description
$^{1}$K. Fox, Paper K5, 26th Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy, The Ohio State University (1971); Phys. Rev. Letters ,27, 233 (1971); Phys. Rev. A 6, 907 (1972). $^{2}$K. FOx and D. E. Jennings, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 23, 318 (1978). Kenneth Fox is a U.S. National Research Council Senior Resident Research Associate at NASA, GSFC; on leave of absence from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37916.""
Author Institution: NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
Author Institution: NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center