A deep submillimetre survey of the Galactic Centre

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 545
• Main Authors: Pierce-Price, D., Richer, J. S., Greaves, J. S., Holland, W. S., Jenness, T., Lasenby, A. N., White, G. J., Matthews, H. E., Ward-Thompson, D., Dent, W. R. F., Zylka, R., Mezger, P., Hasegawa, T., Oka, T., Omont, A., Gilmore, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Astronomical Society 2000
• Subjects: Astrophysics; Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics; Physics
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357

We present first results from a submillimetre continuum survey of the Galactic Centre `Central Molecular Zone\' (CMZ), made with SCUBA on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. SCUBA\'s scan-map mode has allowed us to make extremely wide-field maps of thermal dust emission with unprecedented speed and sensitivity. We also discuss some issues related to the elimination of artefacts in scan-map data. Our simultaneous 850/450 micron maps have a total size of approximately 2.8 x 0.5 degrees (400 x 75 pc) elongated along the galactic plane. They cover the Sgr A region-including Sgr A*, the circumnuclear disc, and the +20 km/s and +50 km/s clouds; the area around the Pistol; Sgr B2-the brightest feature on the map; and at their Galactic Western and Eastern edges the Sgr C and Sgr D regions. There are many striking features such as filaments and shell-like structures, as well as point sources such as Sgr A* itself. The total mass in the Central Molecular Zone is greater than that revealed in previous optically-thin molecular line maps by a factor of ~3, and new details are revealed on scales down to 0.33 pc across this 400 pc wide region.