The Hidden Past of M92: Detection and Characterization of a Newly Formed 17° Long Stellar Stream Using the Canada-France Imaging Survey
Abstract
We present an analysis of the structure, kinematics, and orbit of a newly found stellar stream emanating from the globular cluster M92 (NGC 6341). This stream was discovered in an improved matched-filter map of the outer Galaxy, based on a "color-color-magnitude" diagram, created using photometry from the Canada-France Imaging Survey and the Pan-STARRS 1 3π survey. We find the stream to have a length of 17° (2.5 kpc at the distance of M92), a width dispersion of 0°29(42 pc), and a stellar mass of [3.17 ± 0.89] × 104 M⊙ (10% of the stellar mass of the current main body of M92). We examine the kinematics of main-sequence, red giant, and blue horizontal branch stars belonging to the stream and that have proper motion measurements from the second data release of Gaia. N-body simulations suggest that the stream was likely formed very recently (during the last ∼500 Myr) forcing us to question the orbital origin of this ancient, metal-poor globular cluster.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- October 2020
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2009.04487
- Bibcode:
- 2020ApJ...902...89T
- Keywords:
-
- Globular star clusters;
- Milky Way dynamics;
- Milky Way stellar halo;
- Galaxy formation;
- 656;
- 1051;
- 1060;
- 595;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 14 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ