WISE Catalog of Galactic HII Regions: 8000 Star-Formation Sources

8000 Galactic HII regions and candidates identified by their mid-infrared morphology using WISE satellite data. This catalog from NASA is the most complete record of massive star formation in the Milky Way, with ~1500 sources confirmed by radio or Halpha emission. The catalog, last updated in March 2026, resolves complexes into individual sources and removes duplicates.

Use Cases

• Mapping the distribution of massive star formation across the Galactic disk based on the catalog's 8000 sources.
• Classifying HII region candidates using positional associations with radio continuum emission mentioned in the description.
• Studying the kinematics of star-forming regions using the molecular velocities provided for ~1500 candidates.
• Validating candidate HII regions based on the described ~95% confirmation rate from previous radio recombination line studies.

Strengths

• Contains ~8000 cataloged sources, making it the most complete catalog of its kind for the Milky Way.
• Includes ~1500 sources with measured radio recombination line or Halpha emission, providing confirmed targets.
• Improves on previous efforts by resolving HII region complexes into multiple sources and removing duplicate entries.
• Provides distances for ~1500 sources and molecular velocities for ~1500 candidates, sourced from the literature.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect observational bias inherent to the WISE satellite's sensitivity and survey limits.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Sources selected by searching for characteristic mid-infrared morphology in WISE satellite data.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:02:00.036556; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Galactic disk of the Milky Way