CO Outflows from Young Stars

Following the detection of extended CO wings in Orion A by Kwan & Scoville (1976) and Zuckerman et al. (1976) came the discovery in 1980 of the first bipolar CO outflow from a low luminosity source, L1551 IRS 5 (Snell, Loren, Plambeck 1980). It was soon realized that bipolar outflows are common in star forming regions, as documented in a highly influential paper by Bally & Lada (1983), and a series of papers by Edwards & Snell (1982, 1983, 1984). Many of the presently best studied molecular outflows were already identified in these early papers, and it was established that there is an association between the optically emitting shocks seen as HerbigHaro objects and the large-scale moving CO gas. Further details of the early years of molecular outflows are discussed by Lada (1985).