Results of the ESO-SEST key programme: CO in the Magellanic Clouds^*

VI. The 30 Dor Complex

¹ NRAO, 949 N. Cherry Av., Campus Building 65, Tucson , Arizona 85721-0655, U.S.A.
² Department of Physics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, U.S.A.
³ Departamento de Astronomía , Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile
⁴ Onsala Space Observatory, S-43900 Onsala, Sweden
⁵ Radioastronomie, Ecole Normale Superieure, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
⁶ Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Bat. 120, Université de Paris-XI, 91045 Orsay Cedex, France
⁷ Laboratorium voor Ruimteonderzoek, SRON, Postbus 800, NL-9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlandis
⁸ Sterrewacht, Postbus 9513, NL-2300 Leiden, The Netherlands
⁹ DEMIRM, Observatoire de Paris, 61 Av. de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
¹⁰ European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile

Send offprint request to: M.L. Kutner

Received: 25 April 1996
Accepted: 7 July 1996

Abstract

We report observations of emission from molecular clouds in a complex extending ~2 kpc south of 30 Dor in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations were taken on the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) as part of the Key Programme: CO in the Magellanic Clouds. This paper presents observations of the emission from the Central and Southern parts of that complex. In both parts, the strongest emission has . This is a factor of to 5 weaker than we would expect for Milky Way GMCs observed at a distance of 50 kpc. In the Central region, the emission is dominated by a 600 pc long, slightly curved feature, which is clearly seen in peak and integrated intensity maps. When we look at this emission in 5  velocity ranges, it breaks into 22 clouds whose sizes and line profiles look like that from Milky Way molecular clouds. The Southern region is clearly separated from the Central region, and its emission can be broken into 5 clouds.