Large metallicity variations in the Galactic interstellar medium.

The interstellar medium (ISM) comprises gases at different temperatures and densities, including ionized, atomic and molecular species, and dust particles1. The neutral ISM is dominated by neutral hydrogen2 and has ionization fractions of up to eight per cent3. The concentration of chemical elements heavier than helium (metallicity) spans orders of magnitudes in Galactic stars4, because they formed at different times. However, the gas in the vicinity of the Sun is assumed to be well mixed and to have a solar metallicity in traditional chemical evolution models5. The ISM chemical abundances can be accurately measured with ultraviolet absorption-line spectroscopy. However, the effects of dust depletion6-9-which removes part of the metals from the observable gaseous phase and incorporates it into solid grains-have prevented, until recently, a deeper investigation of the ISM metallicity. Here we report the dust-corrected metallicity of the neutral ISM measured towards 25 stars in our Galaxy. We find large variations in metallicity over a factor of ten (with an average of 55 ± 7 per cent solar metallicity and a standard deviation of 0.28 dex), including many regions of low metallicity, down to about 17 per cent solar metallicity and possibly below. Pristine gas falling onto the Galactic disk in the form of high-velocity clouds can cause the observed chemical inhomogeneities on scales of tens of parsecs. Our results suggest that this low-metallicity accreting gas does not efficiently mix into the ISM, which may help us understand metallicity deviations in nearby coeval stars.

The hidden mass and large spatial extent of a post-starburst galaxy outflow.

Outflowing winds of multiphase plasma have been proposed to regulate the buildup of galaxies, but key aspects of these outflows have not been probed with observations. By using ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy, we show that "warm-hot" plasma at 10(5.5) kelvin contains 10 to 150 times more mass than the cold gas in a post-starburst galaxy wind. This wind extends to distances > 68 kiloparsecs, and at least some portion of it will escape. Moreover, the kinematical correlation of the cold and warm-hot phases indicates that the warm-hot plasma is related to the interaction of the cold matter with a hotter (unseen) phase at >>10(6) kelvin. Such multiphase winds can remove substantial masses and alter the evolution of post-starburst galaxies.