Photodissociation region

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photodissociation regions (or photon-dominated regions, or PDRs) are predominantly neutral regions of the interstellar medium in which far ultraviolet photons strongly influence the gas chemistry and act as the most important source of heat.[1] They occur in any region of interstellar gas that is dense and cold enough to remain neutral, but that has too low a column density to prevent the penetration of far-UV photons from distant, massive stars. A typical and well-studied example is the gas at the boundary of a giant molecular cloud.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hollenbach, D.J.; Tielens, A.G.G.M. (1999). "Photodissociation regions in the interstellar medium of galaxies". Review of Modern Physics 71 (1): 173. Bibcode:1999RvMP...71..173H. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.71.173. 


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.