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Star Formation History of the Small Magellanic Cloud: the shell-like structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2025

J. D. Sakowska Open the ORCID record for J. D. Sakowska [Opens in a new window] ,
N. E. D. Noël ,
T. Ruiz-Lara  and
C. Gallart
J. D. Sakowska*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7JH, United Kingdom
N. E. D. Noël
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7JH, United Kingdom
T. Ruiz-Lara
Affiliation:
Universidad de Granada (ugr), Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Campus Fuente Nueva, Edificio Mecenas, 18071 Granada, Spain
C. Gallart
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea s/n, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
*
email: j.sakowska@surrey.ac.uk
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Abstract

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We present the spatially resolved star formation history (SFH) of a shell-like structure located in the northeastern Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We quantitatively obtain the SFH using unprecedented deep photometric data (g ∼ 24 magnitude) from the SMASH survey and colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) fitting techniques. We consider, for the first time, the SMC’s line-of-sight depth and its optical effects on the CMDs. The SFH presents higher accuracy when a line-of-sight depth of ∼ 3 kpc is simulated.

We find young star formation enhancements at ∼150 Myr, ∼200 Myr, ∼450 Myr, ∼650 Myr, and ∼1 Gyr. Comparing the structure’s SFH with the Large Magellanic Cloud’s northern arm SFH we show strong evidence of synchronicity from at least the past ∼2.8 Gyr, possibly ∼3.5 Gyr. Our results place constraints on the orbital history of the Magellanic Clouds which, potentially, have implications on their dynamical mass estimates.

Keywords

galaxies: Magellanic CloudsLocal Groupformationevolutionstar formation

Information

Type
Poster Paper
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 19 , Symposium S379: Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies , December 2023 , pp. 273 - 277
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Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Astronomical Union

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