The APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) is an unbiased 870 µm submillimetre survey of the inner Galactic plane (| | < 60 • with |b| < 1.5 • ). It is the largest and most sensitive ground-based submillimetre wavelength Galactic survey to date and has provided a large and systematic inventory of all massive, dense clumps in the Galaxy (≥1000 M at a heliocentric distance of 20 kpc) and includes representative samples of all of the earliest embedded stages of high-mass star formation. Here we present the first detailed census of the properties (velocities, distances, luminosities and masses) and spatial distribution of a complete sample of ∼8000 dense clumps located in the Galactic disk (5 • < | | < 60 • ). We derive highly reliable velocities and distances to ∼97 per cent of the sample and use midand far-infrared survey data to develop an evolutionary classification scheme that we apply to the whole sample. Comparing the evolutionary subsamples reveals trends for increasing dust temperatures, luminosities and line-widths as a function of evolution indicating that the feedback from the embedded proto-clusters is having a significant impact on the structure and dynamics of their natal clumps. We find that the vast majority of the detected clumps are capable of forming a massive star and 88 per cent are already associated with star formation at some level. We find the clump mass to be independent of evolution suggesting that the clumps form with the majority of their mass in-situ. We estimate the statistical lifetime of the quiescent stage to be ∼5×10 4 yr for clump masses ∼1000 M decreasing to ∼1×10 4 yr for clump masses >10000 M . We find a strong correlation between the fraction of clumps associated with massive stars and peak column density. The fraction is initially small at low column densities but reaching 100 per cent for column densities above 10 23 cm −2 ; there are no clumps with column density clumps above this value that are not already associated with massive star formation. All of the evidence is consistent with a dynamic view of star formation wherein the clumps form rapidly and are initially very unstable so that star formation quickly ensues.

We present the first results from the science demonstration phase for the Hi-GAL survey, the Herschel key program that will map the inner Galactic plane of the Milky Way in 5 bands. We outline our data reduction strategy and present some science highlights on the two observed 2 • × 2 • tiles approximately centered at l = 30 • and l = 59 • . The two regions are extremely rich in intense and highly structured extended emission which shows a widespread organization in filaments. Source SEDs can be built for hundreds of objects in the two fields, and physical parameters can be extracted, for a good fraction of them where the distance could be estimated. The compact sources (which we will call cores' in the following) are found for the most part to be associated with the filaments, and the relationship to the local beam-averaged column density of the filament itself shows that a core seems to appear when a threshold around A V ∼ 1 is exceeded for the regions in the l = 59 • field; a A V value between 5 and 10 is found for the l = 30 • field, likely due to the relatively higher distances of the sources. This outlines an exciting scenario where diffuse clouds first collapse into filaments, which later fragment to cores where the column density has reached a critical level. In spite of core L/M ratios being well in excess of a few for many sources, we find core surface densities between 0.03 and 0.5 g cm −2 . Our results are in good agreement with recent MHD numerical simulations of filaments forming from large-scale converging flows.

We present the Red MSX Source (RMS) Survey, the largest statistically selected catalog of young massive protostars and HII regions to date. We outline the construction of the catalog using mid and near infrared color selection, as well as the detailed follow up work at other wavelengths, and at higher spatial resolution in the infrared. We show that within the adopted selection bounds we are more than 90% complete for the massive protostellar population, with a positional accuracy of the exciting source of better than 2 arcseconds. We briefly summarize some of the results that can be obtained from studying the properties of the objects in the catalog as a whole, and find evidence that the most massive stars form: (i) preferentially nearer the Galactic centre than the anti-centre; (ii) in the most heavily reddened environments, suggestive of high accretion rates; and (iii) from the most massive cloud cores.

Thermal images of cold dust in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way, obtained with the far-infrared cameras on-board the Herschel satellite, reveal a ∼ 3 × 10 7 M ring of dense and cold clouds orbiting the Galactic Center. Using a simple toy-model, an elliptical shape having semi-major axes of 100 and 60 parsecs is deduced. The major axis of this 100-pc ring is inclined by about 40 • with respect to the plane-of-the-sky and is oriented perpendicular to the major axes of the Galactic Bar. The 100-pc ring appears to trace the system of stable x 2 orbits predicted for the barred Galactic potential. Sgr A is displaced with respect to the geometrical center of symmetry of the ring. The ring is twisted and its morphology suggests a flattening-ratio of 2 for the Galactic potential, which is in good agreement with the bulge flattening ratio derived from the 2MASS data.

Using spectral-line observations of HNCO, N 2 H + , and HNC, we investigate the kinematics of dense gas in the central ∼ 250 pc of the Galaxy. We present scouse (Semi-automated multi-COmponent Universal Spectral-line fitting Engine), a line-fitting algorithm designed to analyse large volumes of spectral-line data efficiently and systematically. Unlike techniques which do not account for complex line profiles, scouse accurately describes the {l, b, v LSR } distribution of Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) gas, which is asymmetric about Sgr A* in both position and velocity. Velocity dispersions range from 2.6 km s −1 < σ < 53.1 km s −1 . A median dispersion of 9.8 km s −1 , translates to a Mach number, M 3D 28. The gas is distributed throughout several "streams", with projected lengths ∼ 100 − 250 pc. We link the streams to individual clouds and sub-regions, including Sgr C, the 20 and 50 km s −1 clouds, the dust ridge, and Sgr B2. Shell-like emission features can be explained by the projection of independent molecular clouds in Sgr C and the newly identified conical profile of Sgr B2 in {l, b, v LSR } space. These features have previously invoked supernova-driven shells and cloud-cloud collisions as explanations. We instead caution against structure identification in velocity-integrated emission maps. Three geometries describing the 3-D structure of the CMZ are investigated: i) two spiral arms; ii) a closed elliptical orbit; iii) an open stream. While two spiral arms and an open stream qualitatively reproduce the gas distribution, the most recent parameterisation of the closed elliptical orbit does not. Finally, we discuss how proper motion measurements of masers can distinguish between these geometries, and suggest that this effort should be focused on the 20 km s −1 and 50 km s −1 clouds and Sgr C.