A Chain of Dark Clouds in Projection Against the Galactic Center
  In the J, H, and Ks bands survey of the the Galactic Center region over an area of 2deg x 5deg, we have found many dark clouds, among which a distinguished chain of dark clouds can be identified with a quiescent CO cloud. The distances of the clouds is estimated to be 3.2-4.2 kpc, corresponding to the Norma arm by our new method to determine distance to dark clouds using the cumulative number of stars against J-Ks colors. Adopting these estimated distances, the size is about 70 pc in length and the total mass of the cloud is 6x10^4 M_solar. Three compact HII regions harbor in the cloud, indicating that star forming activities are going on at the cores of the quiescent CO cloud on the spiral arm. 
Takahiro Nagayama, Shuji Sato, Shogo Nishiyama, Yuka Murai, Tetsuya   Nagata, Hirofumi Hatano, Mikio Kurita, Motohide Tamura...