Abstract
I present a catalog of distances to 63 molecular clouds located within ~2.5
kpc of the Sun. The cloud distances are derived based on utilizing the Gaia DR3
parallaxes of the young stellar objects (YSOs). By identifying AllWISE YSO
candidates (YSOCs) with infrared excesses and combining them with published
YSOC catalogs, I compile an all-sky YSOC sample that is devoid of a significant
proportion of contaminants. Using Gaia DR3 astrometric measurements, I
associate over 3000 YSOCs with 63 local clouds and obtain the average distance
to each cloud by fitting the YSOC parallax distribution within the cloud. I
find good agreements with typical scatter of <10% between my new cloud
distances and previous distance estimates. Unlike cloud distances obtained
using stellar extinction, my catalog provides distances to the relatively dense
areas of local clouds, which makes them more appropriate references for
investigating the physical properties of nearby dense regions.
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