Far-Ultraviolet Dust Albedo Measurements in the Upper Scorpius Cloud Using the SPINR Sounding Rocket Experiment

TL;DR

This study measures the far-ultraviolet dust albedo in the Upper Scorpius cloud using data from the SPINR sounding rocket, revealing wavelength-dependent properties of interstellar dust.

Contribution

It provides new far-ultraviolet dust albedo measurements in the Upper Scorpius region using a sounding rocket, with detailed spectral analysis and radiative transfer modeling.

Findings

Albedo values are 0.28, 0.33, and 0.77 for the three wavelength bands.

The data constrains the dust scattering properties in the far-ultraviolet.

Results improve understanding of interstellar dust characteristics in the UV.

Abstract

The Spectrograph for Photometric Imaging with Numeric Reconstruction (SPINR) sounding rocket experiment was launched on 2000 August 4 to record far-ultraviolet (912-1450 A) spectral and spatial information for the giant reflection nebula in the Upper Scorpius region. The data were divided into three arbitrary bandpasses (912-1029 A, 1030-1200 A, and 1235-1450 A) for which stellar and nebular flux levels were derived. These flux measurements were used to constrain a radiative transfer model and to determine the dust albedo for the Upper Scorpius region. The resulting albedos were 0.28+/-0.07 for the 912-1029 A bandpass, 0.33+/-0.07 for the 1030-1200 A bandpass, and 0.77+/-0.13 for the 1235-1450 A bandpass.