The development of millimeter and submillimeter interferometers was motivated by the discovery, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, trace amounts of molecular gas in the interstellar medium could be through millimeter-wave spectral line emission (cf Rank et al 1971). The observed lines reflected the presence of unexpectedly large of molecular hydrogen, H_2 organized into giant molecular clouds star formation takes place in the Milky Way and in other galaxies (e.g. Sanders et aI 1984). A wide variety of millimeter-wave molecular lines also been identified in the circumstellar shells around evolved stars (cf Loup et al 1993). The intensities and Doppler shifts of these mm-wave lines provide information about the density, temperature, , and chemical state of the gas. In addition, interstellar and dust can be studied through observations of millimeter-wave continuum radiation. The success of centimeter-wavelength interferometers as the VLA in producing fundamental new science argued millimeter-wavelength astronomy would also benefit from the high resolution provided by interferometers.
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Sargent et al. (1993) studied this question.