Release of the Galactic plane survey data of the [CII] line by BICE (Balloon Infrared Carbon Explorer)
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Ionized carbon atom has a fine structure line by a transition of 2P3/2 — 2P1/2 at 157.7 microns. It has been found as the strongest far-infrared line, and ubiquitously distributed in the Galaxy. ISAS has made an extensive Galactic plane survey of the line by a liquid helium cooled Fabry Perot spectrometer on board (BICE) in early 1990's. The survey covered the galactic plane between the galactic longitudes l = −110° ~ +30° and the galactic latitudes b = −4° ~ +4°. The observations had been made almost 30 years ago, but only the northern sky data had been so far analyzed and published. The rest of the data in the southern sky has been analyzed and released as an archival data set。 combined with the northern sky data. No other similar data has been present so far, and it would give a useful data to study the physical and chemical conditions in interstellar space as well as the global structure of the Galaxy, as made by the hydrogen line at 21 cm and the CO line at 2.6 mm.