The Ancient Stars of M32

Details The Ancient Stars of M32 The Ancient Stars of M32

Jul 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002hst..prop.9392m&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #9392

Computer Science

Hst Proposal Id #9392

Scientific paper

The question of whether the dwarf elliptical galaxy M32 contains a population of truly ancient stars has remained unsettled for decades. We recently used HST/WFPC2 to identify for the first time a population of RR Lyr stars in this galaxy. Since these stars are known only to be present in stellar populations older than 8-10 Gyr, we contend that M32 does possess an old stellar component and certainly cannot be comprised of only intermediate-age { 5 Gyr} stars as has been frequently suggested in the literature. Our earlier observations were insufficient to determine even the most basic photometric properties of these stars. Nor could we use the data to identify independent evidence of the old population that could help constrain just what fraction of the galaxy's stars are ancient. We propose new HST/ACS observations to {a} get periods and luminosities of the previously observed RR Lyr stars, {b} search for additional RR Lyr stars in a significantly larger volume of M32, and {c} obtain ultra-deep 2-color photometry to study the ancient main-sequence turnoff region of that galaxy directly, {d} look for radial population gradients in M32, both among the RR Lyr/Horizontal Branch and main-sequence populations, {e} compare the M31/M32 old populations in terms of metallicity spread, and {f} use the RR Lyr stars to precisely determine the relative and possibly the absolute distances of M32 and M31's halo.

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