1 Introduction

Molecular hydrogen is the main component of interstellar clouds and atmospheres of outer planets. The knowledge of the electronic transition probabilities and the corresponding wavelengths is critical for the interpretation of the corresponding VUV observations and the recent launch of the FUSE mission, whose wavelength range includes the Lyman and Werner (respectively B - X and C - X transitions) of molecular hydrogen, reinforces the need for accurate data. We have been involved recently in calculations of the discrete transitions between X, the ground electronic state, and the excited levels of B, C, B', D states up to high values of rotational quantum number (Abgrall et al. [1993a], [1993b], [1994]) and we have largely dispatched our results via electronic file transfer. On the other hand, electronically excited hydrogen can also emit in the continuum of the ground electronic state as first experimentally demonstrated by Dalgarno et al. ([1970]). In fact, this continuum radiative fluorescence controls dissociation of molecular hydrogen in various astrophysical environments. In diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds, this emission takes place after radiative absorption and controls the transition between atomic and molecular gas (Stephens & Dalgarno [1972]; Black & Dalgarno [1977]; Abgrall et al. [1992]) whereas electronic collisional excitation is the source of excitation in the atmospheres of outer planets (Liu et al. [1998]). We had also calculated the continuum fluorescence spectrum up to J=10 and compared successfully our theoretical results with experiments performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Liu et al. [1995]; Abgrall et al. [1997]). The kinetic energy released in the emergent hydrogen atoms is a heating mechanism in the considered environment (Stephens & Dalgarno [1973]). In this paper we extend our previous results up to values of J=25. We recall briefly the theoretical frame of our calculations in Sect. 2 and describe the ab-initio input data needed to solve the Schrödinger coupled equations in Sect. 3. Finally, we present and discuss our results. We give the electronic character percentage of the considered excited states, the calculated energy levels obtained from the eigenvalues of the equations together with the total transition probabilities, the total transition probability towards continuum and the mean kinetic energy released in the dissociation.