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The Interstellar Medium Family

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Classifying the Cosmos

Part of the book series: Astronomers' Universe ((ASTRONOM))

Abstract

With this class of objects, we enter the Family of the interstellar medium. The interstellar medium consists of about 99% gas and 1% dust, and the gas component consists of three main classes of objects: cool atomic clouds composed mainly of neutral hydrogen (H I); hot ionized clouds also composed mainly of hydrogen, known as H II regions (S 24) and observed as emission nebulae; and cold molecular clouds (S 25) composed largely of hydrogen (H2) with a sprinkling of other molecules.

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Notes

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    See, for example, NASA’s Cosmic Ice Laboratory at GSFC http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/691/cosmicice/.

    Also the Astrophysics and Astrochemistry Lab at NASA Ames http://astrochemistry.org/

    The International Astronomical Union has an Astrochemistry Working Group http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/iau34/

    And see other labs at http://www.astrochymist.org/astrochymist_links.html and at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/iau34/astrochemresearch.html

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    Steven J. Dick

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Dick, S.J. (2019). The Interstellar Medium Family. In: Classifying the Cosmos. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10380-4_11

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