Image Details
Caption: Figure 21.
We show the Gaia DR2 RR Lyrae whose selection was described in Section 2. Left: pixels are colored by mean RRL heliocentric distance. A gradient is observed across the face of the LMC disk owing to its inclination. We also see RRL residing in the eastern portion of the SMC to lie at closer heliocentric distances. Between the Clouds, we see the old stellar bridge with stars lying at distances consistent with both Clouds. Middle: RRL distance is shown along XMB for stars lying in the slice of −10° < YMB < 0°. The SMC morphology is cigar-like, stretching along our line of sight. There appear to be two distinct structures lying between the Clouds at heliocentric distances of ∼50 and ∼55 kpc. The inset panel shows the distance distribution for RRL lying in the slice −14° < XMB < −10° in which we observe a bimodality, with the two peaks associated with the dual structures stretching between the Clouds.
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