Collaborative Research - A Panchromatic Imaging Survey of the Galactic Bulge

研究人员将研究我们的银河系和人马座的巨大星星云，在美国的任何地方，在一个黑暗的夏夜，在南方地平线的低处，都很容易看到它们。他们的观测计划是精确测量银河系最明亮部分恒星的颜色，包括我们银河系中心附近恒星的凸起。 他们的科学目标是了解凸起中恒星的起源和形成历史。研究人员将在智利Cerro Tololo天文台的4米望远镜上使用暗能量相机（目前所有望远镜中最强大的）。 它们将产生一系列彩色图像，从红外线，光学到紫外线波长。该方案的广泛影响有几个组成部分。Foremost为专业天文学家和公众提供在线查看多色图像的工具。 调查人员将向公众提供专业天文学家使用的相同数据。 研究人员将通过流行的期刊文章，公开讲座和天空观察活动报告结果。这项合作将利用我们银河系凸起的这些详细图像来绘制其恒星的结构，推断它们的年龄和金属含量，以揭示凸起恒星的结构和形成历史。另外一个额外的奖励将是在合作观察的六个过滤器中超过30个球状星星集群的详细图像。随着时间的推移，恒星的空间运动将被测量，从而能够研究支持凸起结构的恒星轨道。围绕银河系核心的恒星隆起可能是由三个过程形成的：1）大爆炸后最初10亿年内的快速猛烈合并，2）大质量恒星团的持续合并，3）银河系早期盘的形成，通过较慢的动力学过程。合作的图像和衍生测量，结合其他研究，有可能改变我们对银河系形成的理解。

The researchers will study our Milky Way galaxy and the great star clouds of Sagittarius, which are easily visible on a dark summer night, low on the Southern horizon, from the anywhere in the United States. Their observation plan is to precisely measure the colors of stars in the brightest part of the Milky Way, including the bulge of stars near the center of our galaxy. Their scientific target is understanding the origin and history of formation of stars in the bulge. The investigators will use the Dark Energy Camera (currently most powerful on any telescope) on the 4m telescope at the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile. They will produce a sequence of color images, from infrared, optical to ultraviolet wavelengths. The broader impact of this program has several components. Foremost is providing professional astronomers and public with tools to view the multi-color images online. The investigators will give the public access to the same data as are used by professional astronomers. The investigators will report the results via popular journal articles, public lectures and sky viewing events. The collaboration will use these detailed images of the bulge of our Milky Way to map the structure of its stars, deduce their age and metal content, to shed light on the structure and formation history of the bulge stars. An additional bonus will be detailed images of over 30 globular star clusters in the six filters observed by the collaboration. Over time, the space motions of stars will be measured, enabling study of the stellar orbits that support the structure of the bulge. The bulge of stars surrounding the core of our galaxy was likely formed as the result of three processes, 1) rapid, violent merging within the first billion years after the Big Bang, 2) ongoing mergers of massive stellar clusters and 3) formation from the early disk of the Milky Way, by slower dynamical processes. The collaboration's images and derived measurements, combined with additional studies, have the potential to transform our understanding of the formation of the Galaxy.