A composite CO survey of the entire milky way

Abstract

Large-scale CO surveys of the entire Galactic plane and specific nearby clouds have been combined to produce a panorama of the entire Milky Way in molecular clouds at an angular resolution of 1/2°. Covering 10°–20° in latitude at all longitudes and all large, nearby clouds at higher latitude, the composite survey is the only molecular line survey to date with sky coverage and resolution comparable to that of the early 21 cm surveys.