We present optical, HI and radio continuum observations of the highlyinclined Virgo Cluster Sc galaxy NGC 4402, which show evidence for ram-pressurestripping and dense cloud ablation. VLA HI and radio continuum maps show atruncated gas disk and emission to the northwest of the main disk emission. Inparticular, the radio continuum emission is asymmetrically extended to thenorth and skewed to the west. The Halpha image shows numerous HII complexesalong the southern edge of the gas disk, possibly indicating star formationtriggered by the ICM pressure. BVR images at 0.5" resolution obtained with theWIYN Tip-Tilt Imager show a remarkable dust lane morphology: at half theoptical radius, the dust lane of the galaxy curves up and out of the disk,matching the HI morphology. Large dust plumes extend upward for ~1.5 kpc fromluminous young star clusters at the SE edge of the truncated gas disk. Thesestar clusters are very blue, indicating very little dust reddening, whichsuggests dust blown away by an ICM wind at the leading edge of the interaction.To the south of the main ridge of interstellar material, where the galaxy isrelatively clean of gas and dust, we have discovered 1 kpc long linear dustfilaments with a position angle that matches the extraplanar radio continuumtail; we interpret this angle as the projected ICM wind direction. One of theobserved dust filaments has an HII region at its head. We interpret these dustfilaments as large, dense clouds which were initially left behind as thelow-density ISM is stripped, but are then ablated by the ICM wind. Theseresults provide striking new evidence on the fate of molecular clouds instripped cluster galaxies.
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