Palomar 5 and its tidal tails: New observational results

/ Authors

G. Piotto, G. Meylan, G. Djorgovski, Marco Riello, Eds, M. Odenkirchen, E. Grebel, W. Dehnen, H. Rix, C. Rockosi

and 1 more author

/ Abstract

Sloan Digital Sky Survey data for the field of the globular cluster Pal 5 reveal the existence of a long massive stream of tidal debris spanning an arc of 10 degrees on the sky. Pal 5 thus provides an outstanding example for tidal disruption of globular clusters in the Milky Way. Radial velocities from VLT spectra show that Pal 5 has an extremely low velocity dispersion, in accordance with the very low mass derived from its total luminosity.