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| Serpens South | |
|---|---|
| Name | Serpens South Nebula |
| Caption | Infrared view of the Serpens South protocluster |
| Type | Star-forming region |
| Epoch | J2000 |
| Ra | 18h 30m |
| Dec | −02° 02′ |
| Constellation | Serpens |
| Distance | ~415 pc |
| Other names | Aquila Rift/Serpens South cluster |
Serpens South Serpens South is a young, embedded star-forming region and protocluster located in the constellation Serpens near the Aquila Rift, notable for its dense filamentary morphology and high protostellar fraction. The region has been the subject of multiwavelength studies from facilities such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and the Submillimeter Array. Serpens South links observational programs across institutions including the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the European Space Agency, and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
Serpens South lies within the larger Aquila Rift molecular complex and forms part of surveys that include the Gould Belt Survey, the Cores to Disks (c2d) Spitzer Legacy Survey, and the Green Bank Telescope mapping projects. The region exhibits high column densities detected by Planck (spacecraft), compact sources cataloged by the Herschel Gould Belt Survey, and outflow activity revealed by the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy. Studies often reference comparative regions such as the Orion Nebula, the Taurus Molecular Cloud, and the Perseus Molecular Cloud to contextualize Serpens South’s youth and clustered nature.
The cluster was identified in infrared surveys with the Spitzer Space Telescope and follow-up imaging with the Two Micron All Sky Survey and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. Early radio and millimeter detections involved the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, and the IRAM 30m Telescope. Subsequent high-resolution studies were performed with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment, the Very Large Array, and the Submillimeter Array, while spectral line maps used the Nobeyama Radio Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope. The field has been included in catalogs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey for complementary optical constraints and compared against archival data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and the Digitized Sky Survey.
The cloud exhibits dense, cold gas traced by molecular transitions like CO isotopologues observed with the IRAM 30m Telescope, CN and N2H+ mapped by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and dust continuum emission characterized by the Herschel Space Observatory. Filaments in Serpens South show widths comparable to structures seen in the Polaris Flare and the Musca cloud and are analyzed in the context of magnetically-influenced filamentary models from the Planck Collaboration. The region’s extinction maps are calibrated against photometry from the Two Micron All Sky Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, while thermal line broadening comparisons use datasets from the Nobeyama Radio Observatory and the FCRAO
Serpens South hosts a high fraction of Class 0 and Class I protostars identified through Spitzer Space Telescope color criteria and bolometric temperature measurements tied to Herschel photometry. The protostellar census has been cross-matched with catalogs from the Chandra X-ray Observatory for X-ray activity and the Very Large Array for radio jets. Clustering properties are compared to the IC 348 cluster and the NGC 1333 region, and initial mass function implications are discussed alongside results from the Orion Nebula Cluster and the L1688 core in Ophiuchus. Molecular outflows traced in CO are analogous to features in HH objects associated with protostellar jets cataloged by the Herbig–Haro surveys.
Filaments in Serpens South are often analyzed using techniques developed for the Herschel Gould Belt Survey and theoretical frameworks from groups at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Magnetic field orientations inferred from polarized dust emission are compared with Planck results and studies of the Musca cloud and Taurus B211/3 filament. Turbulence and fragmentation are modeled with codes used by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of California, Berkeley, and comparisons are made to numerical simulations performed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the Center for Computational Astrophysics (Flatiron Institute).
Distance estimates for Serpens South cluster around ~415 parsecs based on Gaia parallaxes for associated young stellar objects, consistent with reddening and extinction mapping from the Two Micron All Sky Survey and kinematic distances derived from CO velocities measured with the FCRAO and the IRAM 30m Telescope. Proper motion and radial velocity studies reference datasets from the Gaia Collaboration, the Very Large Telescope spectrographs, and the Keck Observatory instruments. Kinematic comparisons include neighboring complexes such as the Serpens Main region and the Aquila Rift star-forming sites cataloged by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Serpens South serves as a template for early clustered star formation and is a target for future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and planned ALMA large programs. Ongoing and planned surveys by the European Southern Observatory facilities, the Green Bank Telescope, and the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano will refine the protostellar census and magnetic field mapping. The region remains relevant to theoretical work at institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.
Category:Star-forming regions