# A faint halo star cluster discovered in the Blanco Imaging of the Southern Sky Survey

## TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a faint, compact halo star cluster in the Southern Sky Survey, providing its properties and analyzing its possible origin, which is unlikely linked to the Large Magellanic Cloud.

## Contribution

The discovery of BLISS 1 as a new faint halo star cluster and the analysis of its origin using Gaia data and simulations.

## Key findings

- BLISS 1 is located at 23.7 kpc from the Sun.
- It has an absolute magnitude of approximately 0.0 mag.
- Proper motion measurements suggest an unlikely origin from the Large Magellanic Cloud.

## Abstract

We present the discovery of a faint, resolved stellar system, BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1), found in Dark Energy Camera data from the first observing run of the Blanco Imaging of the Southern Sky (BLISS) Survey. BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1) is located at (RA, Dec) = (177.511, -41.772) deg with a heliocentric distance of D = 23.7$^{+1.9}_{-1.0}$ kpc. It is a faint, Mv = 0.0$^{+1.7}_{-0.7}$ mag, and compact, rh = 4.1 +/- 1 pc, system consistent with previously discovered faint halo star clusters. Using data from the second data release of the Gaia satellite, we measure a proper motion of $(\mu_\alpha \cos \delta, \mu_\delta)$ = (-2.37 +/- 0.06, 0.16 +/- 0.04) mas/yr. Combining the available positional and velocity information with simulations of the accreted satellite population of the Large Magellanic Cloud, we find that it is unlikely that BLISS J0321+0438 (BLISS 1) originated with the Large Magellanic Cloud.