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SEGUE Science
The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the key questions facing astronomers and cosmologists today.
Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, offers a unique window into this process. It is the only galaxy in which we can hope to study in detail the stars that trace the current structure of Galaxy and serve as a fossil record of billions of years of Galactic history.
SEGUE has been designed to explore the
- structure
- formation history
- kinematics
- dynamical evolution
- chemical evolution
- dark matter distribution
of the Milky Way. The images and spectra obtained by SEGUE will allow astronomers to map the positions and velocities of hundreds of thousands of stars, from faint, relatively near-by (within about 100 pc or roughly 300 light-years) ancient stellar embers known as white dwarfs to bright stellar giants located in the outer reaches of the stellar halo, more than 100,000 light-years away. Encoded within the spectral data are the composition and temperature of these stars, vital clues for determining the age and origin of different populations of stars within the Galaxy.
I. Galactic Structure
Halo substructure
Structure of the Galactic Disks
Dark Matter
Interstellar Medium
II. Evolution and History of the Milky Way
Merger History
Chemical Evolution
Star Formation
Rare Objects
