Program: GN-2007B-Q-43

We propose to image the spectacular H-alpha nebula surrounding NGC1275 (the central dominant galaxy of the Perseus cluster) in the light of the near-IR molecular emission line H_2 v=1-0 S(1). Using UKIRT K-band spectroscopy, we have discovered that there is warm molecular gas associated with the outer H-alpha filaments -- existing over 20 kpc out from the galaxy, embedded in the hot X-ray intracluster medium. We shall compare our H_2 image in detail with both our very deep (1 Msec) Chandra X-ray map and a deep H-alpha image, enabling us to make significant progress in quantifying and understanding the relationship between the filaments and the X-ray intracluster medium.