Related papers: Tracing the Magellanic Clouds Back in Time
We report the discovery of 15 stars in the H3 survey that lie, in projection, near the tip of the trailing gaseous Magellanic Stream (MS). The stars have Galactocentric velocities $< -155$ km s$^{-1}$, Galactocentric distances of $\approx…
Recent high precision proper motions from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) suggest that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) are either on their first passage or on an eccentric long period (>6 Gyr) orbit about…
We report the 3D kinematics of 27 Mira-like stars in the northern, eastern and southern periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), based on Gaia proper motions and a dedicated spectroscopic follow-up. Low-resolution spectra were…
The past decade has witnessed impressive progress in our understanding of the physical properties of massive stars in the Magellanic Clouds, and how they compare to their cousins in the Galaxy. I summarise new results in this field,…
We model the kinematics of the high- and intermediate- velocity clouds (HVCs and IVCs) observed in absorption towards a sample of 55 Galactic halo stars with accurate distance measurements. We employ a simple model of a thick disc whose…
We present the results of a new sensitive survey of neutral hydrogen above and below the Galactic Center with the Green Bank Telescope. The observations extend up to Galactic latitude | b | < 10 deg with an effective angular resolution of…
The kinematical and spatial properties of the metal-rich globular clusters in the Galaxy ([Fe/H] > -0.8) indicates that these objects do not comprise a homogeneous population. Three subsystems are identified. The highest-mass clusters…
The halo of our Galaxy is populated with a significant number of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) moving with a speed up to $500$ km/s. It is suggested that these HVCs might contain a non-negligible fraction of the missing baryons. The main aim…
We explore the structural and kinematic properties of the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using data from the Magellanic Edges Survey (MagES) and Gaia EDR3. Even at large galactocentric radii ($8^\circ<R<11^\circ$), we find…
The Milky Way (MW) and M31 both harbor massive satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and M33, which may comprise up to 10 per cent of their host's total mass. Massive satellites can change the orbital barycentre of the…
We use Gaia Data Release 2 to determine the mean proper motions for 150 Milky Way globular clusters (almost the entire known population), with a typical uncertainty of 0.05 mas/yr limited mainly by systematic errors. Combining them with…
The high- and intermediate-velocity interstellar clouds (HVCs/IVCs) are tracers of energetic processes in and around the Milky Way. Clouds with near-solar metallicity about one kpc above the disk trace the circulation of material between…
We explore the possibility that the observed population of Galactic hypervelocity stars (HVSs) originate as runaway stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Pairing a binary evolution code with an N-body simulation of the interaction of…
A straightforward determination of the circular-speed curve vc(R) of the Milky Way suggests that near the Sun, vc starts to rise approximately linearly with R. If this result were correct, the Galactic mass density would have to be…
We compile and analyze ~200 trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of molecular masers associated with very young high-mass stars. These measurements strongly suggest that the Milky Way is a four-arm spiral. Fitting log-periodic…
The Milky Way's satellites provide unique information about the density of the Galactic halo at large radii. The inclusion of even a few rather inaccurate proper motions resolves an ambiguity in older mass estimates in favour of higher…
Distances to galaxies in the Local Group are reviewed. In particular, the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud is found to be $(m-M)_0 = 18.52 \pm 0.10$, corresponding to $50,600 \pm 2,400$ pc. The importance of M31 as an analog of the…
The construction of an accurate 3D model of the Milky Way center is necessary to understand inflow processes that drive its overall evolution, and to compare our Galactic nucleus to other galaxies' nuclei. A main point of contention is the…
We set new limits on the mass of the Milky Way, making use of the latest kinematic information for Galactic satellites and halo objects. In order to bind these sample objects to the Galaxy, their rest-frame velocities must be lower than…
Modern extragalactic molecular gas surveys now reach the scales of star-forming giant molecular clouds (GMCs, 20-50 pc). Systematic variations in GMC properties with galaxy environment imply that clouds are not universally self-gravitating…