Probing the Galactic Halo using X-ray shadows at high galactic latitudes

At high galactic latitudes the distant soft Xray background is dominated byextragalactic sources and emission from the hot galactic halo. Results fromROSAT Survey observations revealed that molecular clouds at high latitudes castdeep shadows on distant components. Observations of the absorption gradients atthe edges of these clouds enable us to disentangle the halo emission from theforeground contribution of the Local Bubble. Our main goal is to establish athermal nature of (part of) the distant emission. Once we have separated thehalo spectrum from the other components along the lines of sight we willperform a detailed spectral analysis of the emission line features expectedin the energy range between 0.31.5 keV. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]