The Discovery of Tidal Tails Around NGC 5466
Astrophysics
2009-11-11 v1
Abstract
We report the discovery of tidal tails around the high-latitude Galactic globular cluster NGC 5466 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. Neural networks are used to reconstruct the probability distribution of cluster stars in u,g,r,i and z space. The tails are clearly visible, once extra-galactic contaminants and field stars have been eliminated. They extend roughly 4 degrees on the sky, corresponding to about 1 kpc in projected length. The orientation of the tails is in good agreement with the cluster's Galactic orbit, as judged from the proper motion data.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0511767,
title = {The Discovery of Tidal Tails Around NGC 5466},
author = {V. Belokurov and N. W. Evans and M. J. Irwin and P. C. Hewett and M. I. Wilkinson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0511767},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to The Astrophysical Journal (Letters)