The Gould's Belt Distances Survey

TL;DR

The Gould's Belt Distances Survey utilizes VLBI to precisely measure distances and motions of young stars in nearby star-forming regions, enhancing understanding of local star formation and internal structures.

Contribution

It introduces a large VLBI-based survey to map distances and kinematics of young stars in Gould's Belt regions with unprecedented accuracy.

Findings

Distances to Taurus, Ophiuchus, Orion constrained

Internal structures and kinematics of star-forming regions revealed

Survey provides detailed 3D mapping of local star formation

Abstract

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations can provide the position of compact radio sources with an accuracy of order 50 micro-arcseconds. This is sufficient to measure the trigonometric parallax and proper motions of any object within 500 pc of the Sun to better than a few percent. Because they are magnetically active, young stars are often associated with compact radio emission detectable using VLBI techniques. Here we will show how VLBI observations have already constrained the distance to the most often studied nearby regions of star-formation (Taurus, Ophiuchus, Orion, etc.) and have started to provide information on their internal structure and kinematics. We will then briefly describe a large project (called The Gould's Belt Distances Survey) designed to provide a detailed view of star-formation in the Solar neighborhood using VLBI observations.