2010/11/23 by K. L. J. Rygl, Rygl, K. L. J., A. Brunthaler +15 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1011.5042
openalex publication_date 2010/11/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Cygnus X is one of the closest giant molecular cloud complexes and therefore an extensively studied region of ongoing high mass star formation. However, the distance to this region has been a long-standing issue, since sources at galactic longitude of ~80 degrees could be in the Local Arm nearby (1-2 kpc), in the Perseus Arm at ~5 kpc, or even in the outer arm (~10 kpc). We use combined observations of the EVN plus two Japanese stations to measure very accurate parallaxes of methanol masers in five star-forming regions in Cygnus X to understand if they belong to one large star-forming complex or if they are separate entities located at different distances. Here we report our preliminary result for W75N based on six epochs of VLBI observations: we find that W75N is at a distance of 1.32+0.11-0.09 kpc, which is significantly closer than the reported values in the literature (1.5-2 kpc).