ANALYSIS OF IUE OBSERVATIONS OF THE GALACTIC CORONA AND THE EXISTENCE OF MOLECULAR CLOUDS IN THE HALO

We re-analyse IUE observations of ions in the galactic corona and confirm Savage & de Boer's (1979) conclusion that the detected hot phase has T ∼ 8 × 104 K. The cold phase must be at T 4 K and probably contains substantial amounts of molecular material. Molecules, such as CH+, OH and SH, may exist in detectable abundances in the transition regions between the hotter gas and the cold gas on the far sides of halo molecular clouds. © 1981 Royal Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System.