THE SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF THE CARINA NEBULA FROM FAR-INFRARED TO RADIO WAVELENGTHS

Multi-wavelength observations are necessary for understanding the physical properties of astrophysical sources. In this paper, we use observations in the far-infrared to radio range to derive the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the Carina nebula. To do this, we carefully subtract the irregularly varying diffuse emission from the Galactic plane, which can be of the order of 10% of the nebula flux at these wavelengths. We find that the far-infrared SED can be modeled as emission from a dust population with a single temperature T-d = (34.5(-1.8)(+2.0)) K and with a spectral index of emissivity alpha = -1.37(-0.08)(+0.09). We also find a total infrared luminosity of the nebula of (7.4(-1.4)(+2.5)) x 10(6) L circle dot and, assuming a single temperature of the dust, a mass of the dust of (9500(-3500)(+4600)) M circle dot.