Peculiarities of CO molecule radiation at mm wavelengths in interstellar molecular clouds

The processes of active star formation in interstellar molecular clouds lead molecules to a nonequilibrium distribution throughout the available energy levels. This is the reason why molecular clouds are sources of fairly intense radiation, with the frequency spectrum determined by vibratory-rotational levels of the energy structure of the molecules. It is known that in star formation regions molecules such as H/sub 2/O, OH, SiO and some others may be in an inversion state. Calculations have shown that under certain conditions in molecular clouds, the CO molecule inversion may also exist in the J=1-0 transition.