Extinction of Taurus, Orion, Perseus, and California Molecular Clouds Based on the LAMOST, 2MASS, and Gaia Surveys. I. 3D Extinction and Structure

Abstract

The 3D extinction and structure are studied for the Taurus, Orion, Perseus, and California molecular clouds based on the LAMOST spectroscopy. Stellar color excess is calculated with the intrinsic color index derived from the atmospheric parameters in the LAMOST DR8 catalog and the observed color index in the Gaia EDR3 and the 2MASS PSC. In combination with the distance from the Gaia EDR3 parallax, the 3D dust extinction maps are retrieved in the color excesses E G BP , G RP and E J , K S with an uncertainty of ∼0.03 mag and ∼0.07 mag respectively. The extinction maps successfully separate the clouds that overlap in the sky area and manifest the structure of the individual cloud. Meanwhile, a bow-like structure is found with a distance range from 175 to 250 pc, half of which is a part of the Per-Tau Shell in similar coordinates and distance while the other half is not. Three low-extinction rings are additionally discovered and briefly discussed.