29 February to 8 March 

5 March: Investigating the Interstellar Medium with a Methylidyne Map of the Milky Way, by Dr. Allison Smith, Physics UPRM. S-228, 10:30 AM

The Interstellar medium (ISM) consists of the gas and dust between the stars, the characteristics of which are crucial to our understanding of the star-gas cycle in our Galaxy. We discuss an introduction to this important constituent of the Milky Way and present a precursor study of the Methylidyne (CH) molecule toward the Galactic Center and selected regions along the plane undertaken with the 12-meter Arecibo radio telescope. Methylidyne is a uniquely useful species for tracing molecular gas in the ISM, yet it comes with challenges and has not often been widely observed. We discuss the intricacies of observing this molecule and examine the first scientific results from this study which currently provides the widest coverage of the Galactic Center region at this frequency and ultimately serves as a proof of concept, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Arecibo 12-m antenna for these studies and motivating future surveys of the galactic plane using this important set of spectral lines.