A three-dimensional map of Milky Way dust.
2015
We present a three-dimensional map of interstellar dust reddening, covering three-quarters of the sky out to a
distance of several kiloparsecs, based on Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) and 2MASS photometry. The map reveals a wealth
of detailed structure, from filaments to large cloud complexes. The map has a hybrid angular resolution, with most
of the map at an angular resolution of 3.4¢ –13.7¢ , and a maximum distance resolution of ~25%. The three-dimensional
distribution of dust is determined in a fully probabilistic framework, yielding the uncertainty in the
reddening distribution along each line of sight, as well as stellar distances, reddenings, and classifications for
800 million stars detected by PS1. We demonstrate the consistency of our reddening estimates with those of two-dimensional
emission-based maps of dust reddening. In particular, we find agreement with the Planck t353GHz
-based reddening map to within 0.05 mag in E ( ) B V - to a depth of 0.5 mag, and explore systematics at reddenings
less than E ( ) B V - » 0.08 mag. We validate our per-star reddening estimates by comparison with reddening
estimates for stars with both Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry and Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding
and Exploration spectral classifications, finding per-star agreement to within 0.1 mag out to a stellar E ( ) B V - of
1 mag. We compare our map to two existing three-dimensional dust maps, by Marshall et al. and Lallement et al.,
demonstrating our finer angular resolution, and better distance resolution compared to the former within ~3 kpc.
The map can be queried or downloaded at http://argonaut.skymaps.info. We expect the three-dimensional
reddening map presented here to find a wide range of uses, among them correcting for reddening and extinction for
objects embedded in the plane of the Galaxy, studies of Galactic structure, calibration of future emission-based dust
maps, and determining distances to objects of known reddening.
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