A Face-on View of Interstellar Dust in the Galactic Plane
Abstract
Interstellar dust is a fundamental component of the Milky Way, influencing star formation, galactic evolution, and observations across the electromagnetic spectrum. Using red clump stars selected from near- and mid-infrared photometry, together with stellar catalogs from previous studies, we construct dust density maps of the Galactic plane (∣ Z ∣ < 25 pc) covering the full 360° in longitude and reaching distances up to 7 kpc. By applying a U-Net convolutional neural network to invert the line-of-sight extinction distribution, we obtain dust density maps at resolutions of 10, 50, and 100 pc, which reveal detailed structures including spiral arms, inter-arm spurs, and giant cavities. The dust distribution in the Galactic plane exhibits a morphology closely resembling that of the so-called Phantom galaxy M74. The derived exponential scale length of the Galactic dust disk is 2.90 kpc, slightly larger than that of the stellar thin disk. Our publicly available dust maps provide a new benchmark for extinction correction, studies of Galactic structure, and the investigation of the interplay between star formation and the interstellar medium.
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BibTeX
@article{zhang2026faceon,
title = {{A Face-on View of Interstellar Dust in the Galactic Plane}},
author = {Lin Zhang and Bingqiu Chen and Fei Qin and Guangxing Li and Haibo Yuan and Yi Ren},
journal = {The Astronomical Journal},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.3847/1538-3881/ae8774},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05733792v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - A Face-on View of Interstellar Dust in the Galactic Plane
AU - Lin Zhang
AU - Bingqiu Chen
AU - Fei Qin
AU - Guangxing Li
AU - Haibo Yuan
AU - Yi Ren
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
JO - The Astronomical Journal
DO - 10.3847/1538-3881/ae8774
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05733792v1
AB - Interstellar dust is a fundamental component of the Milky Way, influencing star formation, galactic evolution, and observations across the electromagnetic spectrum. Using red clump stars selected from near- and mid-infrared photometry, together with stellar catalogs from previous studies, we construct dust density maps of the Galactic plane (∣ Z ∣ < 25 pc) covering the full 360° in longitude and reaching distances up to 7 kpc. By applying a U-Net convolutional neural network to invert the line-of-sight extinction distribution, we obtain dust density maps at resolutions of 10, 50, and 100 pc, which reveal detailed structures including spiral arms, inter-arm spurs, and giant cavities. The dust distribution in the Galactic plane exhibits a morphology closely resembling that of the so-called Phantom galaxy M74. The derived exponential scale length of the Galactic dust disk is 2.90 kpc, slightly larger than that of the stellar thin disk. Our publicly available dust maps provide a new benchmark for extinction correction, studies of Galactic structure, and the investigation of the interplay between star formation and the interstellar medium.
SN - 0004-6256
SN - 1538-3881
ER -