J/ApJS/280/16 All-sky cat. of molecular clouds from 3D dust map (Wang+, 2025)
A comprehensive all-sky catalog of 3345 molecular clouds from three-dimensional
dust extinction.
Wang T., Yuan H., Chen B., Li G., Huang B., Guo H., Zhang R.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 280, 16 (2025)>
=2025ApJS..280...16W 2025ApJS..280...16W
ADC_Keywords: Molecular clouds; Interstellar medium; Milky Way; Optical;
Extinction
Keywords: Interstellar dust ; Interstellar medium ; Milky Way Galaxy ;
Molecular clouds ; Catalogs
Abstract:
Understanding the distribution and properties of molecular clouds is
crucial for tracing the structure and evolution of the interstellar
medium (ISM) and the large-scale morphology of the Milky Way. Here we
present an all-sky catalog of 3345 molecular clouds identified from
our previous three-dimensional dust-reddening map using a
dendrogram-based clustering method with distance-adaptive parameters.
The catalog spans heliocentric distances from 90pc to 4.3kpc and
includes key physical properties for each cloud, including position,
size, mass, surface density, and dust density. Approximately
650 clouds in our catalog are associated with the boundary of the
Local Bubble, while around 740 clouds (excluding those associated with
the Local Bubble) are located at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>20). The
spatial distribution of the cataloged clouds reveals prominent
large-scale features in the Galactic disk, including coherent
spur-like structures, large-scale cavities, and a more detailed view
of the Local Bubble shell. These findings refine our understanding of
how molecular clouds trace the Galactic spiral arm network and provide
new insight into the spatial structure of the Local Bubble. The
catalog serves as a valuable resource for future studies of star
formation, Galactic structure, and the interaction between molecular
clouds and large-scale ISM features.
Description:
This study uses the 3D dust-reddening map published by W25
(Wang+ 2025, J/ApJS/280/15), which provides an all-sky view of the
reddening distribution. The map was constructed by combining reddening
measurements from two major sources: low-resolution spectra from the
Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope (LAMOST) DR11
and BP/RP (hereafter XP) spectra from the European Space Agency's Gaia
mission.
The 3D dust map used in this study is publicly available from the
website https://nadc.china-vo.org/data/dustmaps
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 57 3345 Catalog of molecular clouds
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See also:
I/337 : Gaia DR1 (Gaia Collaboration, 2016)
I/355 : Gaia DR3 Part 1. Main source (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
J/A+A/327/325 : Distances of molecular cloud (May+, 1997)
J/A+A/411/447 : Interstellar NaI D-line (Lallement+, 2003)
J/A+A/591/A5 : ATLASGAL dense filamentary structures (Li+, 2016)
J/ApJ/834/57 : MW molecular clouds from 12CO (Miville-Deschenes+, 2017)
J/MNRAS/487/1400 : Spiral structure as revealed by O and B stars (Chen+, 2019)
J/ApJ/885/131 : High-mass SFR plx & proper motion with VLBI (Reid+, 2019)
J/MNRAS/493/351 : A large catalogue of molecular clouds (Chen+, 2020)
J/MNRAS/511/2302 : Molecular clouds study from 3D extinction maps (Guo+, 2022)
J/A+A/664/A174 : Gal. interstellar dust Gaia-2MASS 3D maps (Vergely+, 2022)
J/AJ/168/203 : Dust clouds masses, color excesses & distances (Sun+, 2024)
J/ApJS/280/15 : Extinction catalog from Gaia DR3 & LAMOST DR11 (Wang+, 2025)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 I4 --- Seq [1/3345] Sequential identifier
6- 11 F6.2 deg GLON Galactic longitude
13- 18 F6.2 deg GLAT [-87.12/87.2] Galactic latitude
20- 23 F4.2 kpc Dist [0.09/4.3] Distance
25- 30 F6.2 pc Rad [1.65/148.11] Projected radius
32- 36 F5.2 deg2 Area [0.2/86.58] Angular area
38- 43 E6.2 Msun Mass [4.11/629000.0] Total mass
45- 49 F5.2 Msun.pc-2 Sigma [0.28/41.98] Surface density
51- 55 F5.2 mag.kpc-1 rho [0.09/11.99] Average dust column density
57- 57 I1 --- Flag [0/1] Local Bubble Flag (1)
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Note (1): The Local Bubble flag indicates whether the cloud is
located on the boundary of the Local Bubble (1 = yes, 0 = no).
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 25-Mar-2026