The VMC ESO Public Survey

M.R. CIONI ET AL.; A.E. PIATTI

The Messenger

ESO

Año: 2013 vol. 154 p. 23 - 25

0722-6691

The VISTA near-infrared YJKs survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC) has entered its corephase: about 40% of the observations across the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC, SMC),the Magellanic Bridge and Stream have already been secured and the data are processed andanalysed regularly. The initial analyses, concentrated in the first two completed tiles in the LMC (6_6including 30 Doradus and 8_8 including the South Ecliptic Pole), show the superior quality of thedata. The depth of the VMC survey allows the derivation of the star formation history (SFH) withunprecedented quality compared to previous wide-area surveys while reddening maps of highangular resolution are constructed using red clump stars. The multi-epoch Ks-band data reveal tightperiod-luminosity relations for variable stars and they permit the measurement of accurate propermotions of the stellar populations. The VMC survey continues to acquire data that will address manyissues in the field of star and galaxy evolution.