Subarcsecond mid-infrared imaging of warm dust in the narrow-line region of NGC 1068

Subarcsecond 8 and 10 μm and diffraction-limited 19 μm imaging of the inner few hundred parsecs of the Seyfert nucleus in NGC 1068 shows the emission to be extended over a region of ∼70×140 pc. In particular, 10.3 μm images with spatial resolutions of 0″.5 or better reveal that the warm dust is associated with the narrow-line clouds and is probably partially mixed with the photoionized gas. Extinction considerations, however, imply that the bulk of the warm dust is located deeper in neighboring molecular clouds, the exposed surfaces of which form the narrow-line clouds