A Map of the Outer Gas Disk of the Galaxy with Direct Distances from Young Stars

Abstract For more than 50 yr, astronomers have mapped the neutral hydrogen gas in the Galaxy assuming kinematically derived distances. We employ the distances of nearby young stars, which trace the gas from which they formed, in longitude–latitude–velocity space to map this gas without using kinematic distances. We denote this new method “pattern matching.” Analysis of simulated spiral galaxies indicates that our pattern matching distances are 24% more accurate than kinematic distances for gas within 15 kpc of the Sun. The two methods provide similar agreement with parallaxes toward these masers, although the kinematic method shows a small systematic offset in distance that is not present in the pattern matching distances. Using parallaxes and velocities for masers, we show that this novel method, when matched with nearby Cepheids, performs well compared to kinematics. This analysis is restricted to sources that have a reasonably good match with a member of our Cepheid sample. The distances derived here, and the associated map, have broad utility—from improving our understanding of star formation and the dynamical structure of the Galaxy, to informing 3D dust maps.