Recent astronomy highlights from the Odin satellite

• DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2005.06.014
• Publication Date: 2005-08-17T11:05:28Z
• Authors: Åke Hjalmarson; Per Bergman; Nicolas Biver; H.-G. Florén; Urban Frisk; Tatsuhiko Hasegawa; Kay Justtanont; Bengt Larsson; Stefan Lundin; Michael Olberg; Henrik Olofsson; Glenn Persson; Gustaf Rydbeck; Aage Sandqvist
• Keywords: Aeronomy; Outflow; Spectral resolution

Abstract Astronomy highlights, mainly from the third year of Odin observations – time shared 50/50% with aeronomy – are presented: the very low O 2 abundance limits achieved, the highly pressure broadened absorption lines of H 2 O, H 2 18 O, and CO (5 → 4) in the atmosphere of Mars, the high precision H 2 O and H 2 18 O observations of comets, the detections of NH 3 and H 2 O around the C-rich star IRC+10216 (CW Leo) and of H 2 O around the O-rich star W Hya, NH 3 and H 2 O observations of infall/outflow interactions, observations of H 2 O, H 2 18 O, H 2 17 O as well as NH 3 and 15 NH 3 in multiple absorptions towards Sgr B2, and in emission towards Orion KL, the H 2 O detection of several new outflows in the DR21 W75S region. We also discuss the results of deconvolution of high S / N H 2 O, CO and 13 CO (5 → 4) maps of the Orion KL region to 40″ resolution (the beam size of the Herschel telescope) and the first results from our ongoing “spectral scan” of Orion KL in bands around 555 and 570 GHz. Finally, a search for primordial molecules is presented.