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A distance of 133-137 parsecs to the Pleiades star cluster

Kulkarni, S. R.; Shao, M.; Pan, Xiaopei

Nearby `open' clusters of stars (those that are not gravitationally bound) have played a crucial role in the development of stellar astronomy because, as a consequence of the stars having a common age, they provide excellent natural laboratories to test theoretical stellar models. Clusters also play a fundamental part in determining distance scale…

Unexpected stellar velocity distribution in the warped Galactic disk

Lattanzi, M. G.; Drimmel, R.; Smart, R. L. +1 more

It is now over 40 years since radio observations of neutral hydrogen revealed the gaseous disk of our Galaxy to be warped. Subsequently, the warp has been detected in the distribution of Galactic dust, molecular clouds, and luminous stars,. Roughly half of all spiral galaxies have similarly warped disks, which suggests that warps are a common and …