Hα Emission from the Magellanic Bridge

Abstract

AbstractWe present here a preliminary report and commentary of recently processed observations of Hα emission towards the Magellanic Bridge. These data have been analysed in an attempt to quantify the extent to which the stellar population is capable of reshaping the local ISM. We find that the Hα emission regions are small, weak and sparsely distributed, consistent with a relatively quiescent and inactive ISM where radiative and collisional ionisation is inefficient and sporadic. This suggests that energetic processes at the small scale (i.e. ∼tens of pc) do not dominate the energy balance within the ISM of the Bridge, which therefore hosts a pristine turbulent structure, otherwise inaccessible within our own Galaxy. We find Hα emission that is well correlated with detected 12CO(1–0) line emission (a proxy for molecular hydrogen), as well as other easily identified ring-like Hı features.