So, here is my paper number four of this year (it’s been a long, cold winter, what else than research was I supposed to do with my time?). In this one, I check whether a number of recently discovered objects in the halo of the Milky Way are aligned with the Vast Polar Structure (VPOS). This is interesting because those objects which move in a common sense in the VPOS probably share a common origin, so we might learn something from knowing which objects are well associated with the VPOS. I find that the most-distant known globular cluster of the Milky Way (which others say might also be a satellite galaxy) is aligned with the structure, just like the other ‘young’ globular clusters. In addition I find that one recently discovered stellar streams aligns very well with the VPOS. In fact, that stream appears to have the same orientation and distance as the well known Palomar 5 stream, and even the estimated metallicity appears to be consistent. Might it be directly connected to the Pal 5 stream? Maybe, but it will require numerical models to check if that stream could in principle be 140 degree long.
“The Vast Polar Structure of the Milky Way Attains New Members“, Marcel S. Pawlowski & Pavel Kroupa, 2014, ApJ, 790, 74 (or on the arXiv: 1407.2612)