2005/02/18 by Heidi Jo Newberg, B. Yanny, Newberg, Heidi Jo +2
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Developments in Astronomy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0502386
to appear in ASP conference Series, "Astrometry in the Age of the Next Generation of Large Telescopes", 2005, eds. Alice Monet and Ken Seidelmann
arxiv created 2005/02/18 · openalex publication_date 2005/02/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We show that the star counts in the spheroid of the Milky Way are not symmetric about the l=0, l=180 deg. plane. The minimum counts are found towards l=155 deg. The Galactic longitude of maximum star counts depends on the magnitude and color selection of the halo stars. We interpret this as evidence that the spheroid population is triaxial with a major axis oriented 65 deg from the line of sight from the Sun to the Galactic center, and approximately perpendicular to the Galactic bar. Large local star concentrations from tidal debris and possible tidal debris are also observed. A full understanding of the Galactic spheroid population awaits position information and three dimensional space velocities for a representative set of stars in every substructure. Tangential velocities for many stars will be provided by current and planned astrometry missions, but no planned mission will measure stars faint enough to unravel the more distant parts of the spheroid, which contain the majority of the spatial substructure. This paper uses data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) public data release DR3.