LOCAL BUBBLE AND LOOP I SPECTRAL STUDIES BY SHADOWING NEARBY DENSE GLOBULES

The densest and closest absorbers of the soft Xray background (SXRB) in theMilky Way are Bok globules, located just outside the Local Bubble in the PipeNebula at a distance of 125pc. With column densities of up to log(NH)virgul23, theyare ideal targets for shadowing the SXRB in the energy range 0.3 2 keV, thusgiving important information on the spatial and spectral variation of theforeground Xray intensity on small scales. We propose Barnard 59 due to anextinction gradient of A_Vvirgul50 mag and the Fest 1457 region due to strong smallscale NHvariations for a detailed spectral study with XMMNewton. Together withalready existing XMM data of Barnard 68, this will allow to determine theionization structure of the Local and Loop I superbubbles. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]