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Session 79 - Star Clusters in Other Galaxies.
Display session, Friday, January 09
Exhibit Hall,
Spectra of 9 candidate young globular clusters in the merger remnant NGC 7252 have been obtained with the CTIO 4-m telescope and cover \lambda\lambda3600--5500 Å\ at a resolution of 4--5 ÅOne of the objects turns out to be a background galaxy, while the other 8 objects are clusters associated with NGC 7252. Seven of these clusters show strong Balmer absorption lines indicative of ages of about 200--600 Myr, while the eighth --- lying in a known H II region --- features emission lines and is likely \lesssim10 Myr old. Based on Bruzual amp; Charlot (1997) models, the metallicities of the two bright clusters NGC 7252:W3 and W6 are approximately solar (Z=1.0^+1.0_-0.5\,Z_ødot). The line-of-sight velocity dispersion of the 8 clusters is 147 km s^-1, similar to that of the globular clusters in NGC 5128 and indicative of a moderately massive host galaxy. These spectroscopic results support the notion that the merger of two spiral galaxies in NGC 7252 triggered the formation of a new subsystem of globular clusters of roughly solar metallicity.
