High resolution mapping in the far-infrared band

Abstract

The earth's atmosphere is opaque to the far-infrared (far-IR) radiation) and hence observations have to be carried out at altitudes above 12 km using telescopes transported by aircraft, balloon or satellite. The restriction to modest size telescopes in this environment along with the longer wavelengths of observations, results in poorer spatial resolution as compared to optical, near and mid infrared observations that can be made using ground based telescopes. However, the resolution of the far-IR observations has improved in recent times, with the employment of deconvolution techniques. This has led to significant results in several astrophysical situations in which the far-IR emission plays a major role. Some of these areas are protostars and outflow regions, sites of high mass star formation, star formation complexes in external galaxies and the relationship between far-IR emission and other indicators of star formation such as H-alpha and radio emitting HII regions, molecular hydrogen complexes and clouds of neutral hydrogen. This talk will describe some of the recent results obtained from high resolution studies in the far-IR and review the future prospects.