Title: Quantifying Dark Gas　　  

　　Speaker: Di Li (NAOC)　　  

    Time: Thursday, 3:00pm,May 8th　　

　　Location: Lecture Hall, 3rd floor　　  

　　The recent decade is seeing a convergence of evidences, which hint at the existence of dark gas, namely, a substantial fraction of gaseous ISM previous undetected.The　　  

　　observations from space observatories, such as IRAS, Planck, EGRET, and Herschel, bring to the forefront the issue of how much such dark gas there is and what exactly it is. I will introduce our plan to systematically quantify dark gas in the Milkyway through absorption studies. We will utilize all major ground-based telescopes, such as Arecibo, JVLA, ATCA, and ALMA.　　  

　　The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) will obtain first light toward the end of 2016. It is particularly suitable for sensitivity limited studies. Here I will also report the status of the FAST project, and particularly, how it will shed light on the issue of dark gas.