Local Interstellar Matter: The Apex Cloud

Abstract

Several nearby individual low column density interstellar cloudlets have been identified based on kinematical features evident in high-resolution CaII observations near the Sun. One of these cloudlets, the ``Aquila-Ophiuchus'' cloud, is within 5 pc of the Sun and located in the solar apex direction. The velocity vector of this Apex Cloud is reevaluated and components at this velocity are found towards 17 stars with distances 1--60 pc, and located primarily in the galactic center hemisphere. The Apex Cloud is the most likely candidate for the ``next'' interstellar cloud to be encountered by the Sun.

References in corpus (2)

• The Ionization of Nearby Interstellar Gas
• The Velocity Distribution of the Nearest Interstellar Gas

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Stellar Lyman-alpha Emission Lines in the Hubble Space Telescope Archive: Intrinsic Line Fluxes and Absorption from the Heliosphere and Astrospheres
• Interstellar Dust Inside and Outside the Heliosphere
• Heliospheric Response to Different Possible Interstellar Environments
• The Interstellar Magnetic Field Close to the Sun II
• Can IBEX Identify Variations in the Galactic Environment of the Sun using Energetic Neutral Atom (ENAs)?
• Short-term Variations in the Galactic Environment of the Sun
• Time-variability in the Interstellar Boundary Conditions of the Heliosphere: Effect of the Solar Journey on the Galactic Cosmic Ray Flux at Earth
• Boundary Conditions of the Heliosphere
• Why Study Interstellar Matter Very Close to the Sun?