NRO M33 All Disk Survey of Giant Molecular Clouds (NRO MAGiC)
Background
The interstellar medium (ISM) is one of the essential components of galaxies because stars are born of it and return to it. The ISM is greatly influenced by massive stars due to their stellar winds and after their death to supernova. Therefore, the formation process of massive stars within the ISM is crucial in understanding the nature and evolution of galaxies. In the Milky Way, a large portion of the ISM is in the form of Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs: Sanders et al. 1985, Scoville & Sanders 1987), which are known to be major sites of massive star formation (Waller et al. 1987).
M 33 is one of the nearest spiral galaxies in the local group ( 840 kpc: Freedman et al. 1991). The M 33's proximity to our Galaxy allows us to resolve its disk region into individual GMCs wi th the existing large-aperture single dishes. Since M 33 has a relatively small inclination angle of 51deg. (Deul & van der Hulst 1987), we can obtain a comprehensive view of a galaxy. This is a great advantage in studying the correlation between the GMC properties and galactic structures, such as spiral arms.
Here, we present the results of the NRO M 33 All-Disk Survey of Giant Molecular Clouds (NRO MAGiC) project conducted with the NRO 45m and ASTE 10m telescopes.
M33 optical image by Subaru telescope
Nobeyama 45m and ASTE 10m telescopes