Proposal code

v036

Proposal title

The Structure of Interstellar OH Masers

The

Investigators and their

Affiliations

P.I. Mark J. Reid Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
Lincoln J. Greenhill Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
Karl M. Menten Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
James M. Moran Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Proposal Abstract

We propose VSOP observations of three nearby sources of interstellar OH emission at 1665 MHz (W3OH, G34.3, & NGC6334). The primary goal of the observations is to study the structure of individual maser spots. Maser spot shapes may provide the key to determining whether interstellar OH masers are found in 1) spherically expanding shocked gas, 2) ``champagne" flows, or 3) bow-shocks associated with the motion of the central exciting star with respect to the ambient cloud. Since observations with ground-only arrays have only partially resolved OH maser spots, the increased angular resolution afforded by VSOP may provide the crucial resolution.

The full Cover Sheets (compressed post-script, typically 50kbytes) can be retrieved. Note that many proposals were reduced in extent by the Scientific Review Committee (e.g. by reducing the number of experiments), however the Cover Sheets contain the full proposal as submitted. Also note that AO1 proposals were submitted in November 1995, and information such as affiliations and contact details has changed for some proposers since that time. The Cover Sheets (and the details on this page, which were derived from the Cover Sheets) may therefore have changed.