A New Hubble Space Telescope Distance to NGC 1569: Starburst Properties and IC 342 Group Membership

TL;DR

This study uses HST data to accurately measure the distance to NGC 1569, revealing it as part of the IC 342 group and indicating it is a more extreme starburst galaxy than previously thought, with higher star formation rates and massive star clusters.

Contribution

First direct detection of the red giant branch tip in NGC 1569, establishing its distance and group membership, and revising its starburst and cluster mass estimates.

Findings

NGC 1569 is 3.36 Mpc away, not 2.2 Mpc.

Confirmed as part of the IC 342 galaxy group.

Star formation rates are more than twice previous estimates.

Abstract

We present deep HST ACS/WFC photometry of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1569, one of the closest and strongest nearby starburst galaxies. These data allow us, for the first time, to unequivocally detect the tip of the red giant branch and thereby determine the distance to NGC 1569. We find that this galaxy is 3.36 +/- 0.20 Mpc away, considerably farther away than the typically assumed distance of 2.2 +/- 0.6 Mpc. Previously thought to be an isolated galaxy due to its shorter distance, our new distance firmly establishes NGC 1569 as a member of the IC 342 group of galaxies. The higher density environment may help explain the starburst nature of NGC 1569, since starbursts are often triggered by galaxy interactions. On the other hand, the longer distance implies that NGC 1569 is an even more extreme starburst galaxy than previously believed. Previous estimates of the rate of star formation for stars younger than ~ 1 Gyr become stronger by more than a factor of 2. Stars older than this were not constrained by previous studies. The dynamical masses of NGC 1569's three super star clusters, which are already known as some of the most massive ever discovered, increase by ~53% to 6-7x10^5 solar masses.