CO(2→1) Emission from NGC 3256: An Interacting Pair of Galaxies

Abstract

At optical wavelengths, characteristic "tails" and chaotic nuclear appearance clearly identify NGC 3256 as an interacting system (Toomre 1977; Schweizer 1986). The newly-constructed, 10.4 m diameter, Leighton telescope of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) has been used to acquire observations of this merger in the CO (2→1) transition at 230 GHz. The turbulent nature of NGC 3256 is immediately obvious in Figure 1, a high contrast photograph provided by F. Schweizer, where circles representing the beam (30″ FWHM) indicate the positions observed.

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