OIR Research: Century Survey Galactic Halo Project

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics


	OIR Research: Century Survey Galactic Halo Project

	The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project uses evolved stars as luminous tracers of the outer parts of the Milky Way. The goal is to directly test the merger picture of Galaxy formation: the remnants of past mergers should still be visible as streams of stars moving together in the outer parts of the Milky Way. We measure the stars' velocities with the Whipple 1.5m telescope, and use those measurements to study the velocity structure of the Milky Way halo. Scientific Publications The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project III: A Complete 4300 deg^2 Survey of Blue Horizontal Branch Stars in the Metal-Weak Thick Disk and Inner Halo .pdf The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project II: Global Properties and the Luminosity Function of Field Blue Horizontal Branch Stars .pdf Mapping the Inner Halo of the Galaxy with 2MASS-Selected Horizontal Branch Candidates .pdf The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project I: Spectral Analysis .pdf Data 2MASS-selected BHB candidate catalog People Warren Brown, Margaret Geller, Scott Kenyon, Michael Kurtz		Measuring the merger history of the Milky Way with star streams (from a simulation by James Bullock).