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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Water Maser Motions in W3(OH) and a Determination of Its Distance
K. HachisukaKarl M. MentenYoshiaki HagiwaraHiroshi ImaiMark J. ReidAndreas BrunthalerMakoto MiyoshiShinji HoriuchiTetsuo Sasaosubject
PhysicsAstrophysics (astro-ph)Measure (physics)FOS: Physical sciencesAstronomy and AstrophysicsAstrometryAstrophysicsAstrophysicslaw.inventionSpace and Planetary SciencelawOutflowMaserParallaxdescription
We report phase-referencing VLBA observations of H2O masers near the star-forming region W3(OH) to measure their parallax and absolute proper motions. The measured annual parallax is 0.489 +/- 0.017 milli-arcseconds (2.04 +/- 0.07 kpc), where the error is dominated by a systematic atmospheric contribution. This distance is consistent with photometric distances from previous observations and with the distance determined from CH3OH maser astrometry presented in a related paper. We also find that the source driving the H2O outflow, the ``TW-object'', moves with a 3-dimensional velocity of > 7 km/s relative to the ultracompact HII region W3(OH).
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006-07-01 | The Astrophysical Journal |