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Title: A Faint Halo Star Cluster Discovered in the Blanco Imaging of the Southern Sky Survey

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [5];  [5];  [5];  [7]; ORCiD logo [5];  [8]; ORCiD logo [5];  [9];  [10];  [11]
  1. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
  2. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  3. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  4. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  5. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  6. Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States)
  7. Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  8. European Southern Observatory, Garching (Germany)
  9. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
  10. Ohio Univ., Athens, OH (United States)
  11. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

We present the discovery of a faint, resolved stellar system, BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1), found in Dark Energy Camera data from the first observing run of the Blanco Imaging of the Southern Sky (BLISS) survey. BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1) is located at $$({\alpha }_{2000},{\delta }_{2000})=(177\buildrel{\circ}\over{.} 511,-41\buildrel{\circ}\over{.} 772)$$ with a heliocentric distance of $${D}_{\odot }={23.7}_{-1.0}^{+1.9}\,\mathrm{kpc}$$. It is a faint, $${M}_{V}={0.0}_{-0.7}^{+1.7}\,\mathrm{mag}$$, and compact, $${r}_{h}={4.1}_{-1}^{+1}\,\mathrm{pc}$$, system consistent with previously discovered faint halo star clusters. Using data from the second data release of the Gaia satellite, we measure a proper motion of $$({\mu }_{\alpha }\cos \delta ,{\mu }_{\delta })=(-2.37\pm 0.06,0.16\pm 0.04)$$ mas yr–1. Here, combining the available positional and velocity information with simulations of the accreted satellite population of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), we find that it is unlikely that BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1) originated with the LMC.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
BLISS Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1495352
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1812.06318; FERMILAB-PUB-18-653-AE; 1710331
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 875, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Digging deeper into the Southern skies: a compact Milky-Way companion discovered in first-year Dark Energy Survey data text January 2015
Eight Ultra-faint Galaxy Candidates Discovered in Year Two of the Dark Energy Survey text January 2015
An Ultra-Faint Galaxy Candidate Discovered in Early Data from the Magellanic Satellites Survey text January 2016
Characterization of the velocity anisotropy of accreted globular clusters text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Photometric Data Set for Cosmology text January 2017
The Dark Energy Survey Image Processing Pipeline text January 2018
The Missing Satellites of the Magellanic Clouds? Gaia Proper Motions of the Recently Discovered Ultra-Faint Galaxies text January 2018
Comparing the properties of local globular cluster systems: implications for the formation of the Galactic halo text January 2004
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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
galaxies: halos
galaxies: star clusters: general
globular clusters: general
Local Group