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A New View of the Dwarf Spheroidal Satellites of the Milky Way from VLT FLAMES: Where Are the Very Metal-poor Stars?
A New View of the Dwarf Spheroidal Satellites of the Milky Way from VLT FLAMES: Where Are the Very Metal-poor Stars?
- Source :
- The Astrophysical Journal. 651:L121-L124
- Publication Year :
- 2006
- Publisher :
- American Astronomical Society, 2006.
-
Abstract
- As part of the Dwarf galaxies Abundances and Radial-velocities Team (DART) program, we have measured the metallicities of a large sample of stars in four nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph's): Sculptor, Sextans, Fornax, and Carina. The low mean metal abundances and the presence of very old stellar populations in these galaxies have supported the view that they are fossils from the early universe. However, contrary to naive expectations, we find a significant lack of stars with metallicities below [Fe/H] ~ -3 dex in all four systems. This suggests that the gas that made up the stars in these systems had been uniformly enriched prior to their formation. Furthermore, the metal-poor tail of the dSph metallicity distribution is significantly different from that of the Galactic halo. These findings show that the progenitors of nearby dSph's appear to have been fundamentally different from the building blocks of the Milky Way, even at the earliest epochs.<br />4 pages, 3 figures
- Subjects :
- Physics
010308 nuclear & particles physics
media_common.quotation_subject
Milky Way
Metallicity
Astrophysics (astro-ph)
FOS: Physical sciences
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
Galaxy
Universe
Large sample
Galactic halo
Stars
Space and Planetary Science
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
media_common
Dwarf galaxy
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15384357 and 0004637X
- Volume :
- 651
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....a3ca89fc9b334f79baf22c1d9b193f28
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1086/509784