The Extragalactic Distance Database: The Color-Magnitude Diagrams and Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances Catalog

TL;DR

This paper updates the Extragalactic Distance Database's TRGB catalog, doubling its size to over 500 galaxies, and discusses improved techniques and future prospects for measuring galaxy distances using space telescopes.

Contribution

It provides a decadal update to the TRGB catalog, enhancing data analysis methods and expanding the dataset for more accurate galaxy distance measurements.

Findings

TRGB is a reliable distance indicator.

Catalog now includes over 500 galaxies.

Future telescopes will extend distance measurements.

Abstract

The Extragalactic Distance Database (EDD) was created as a repository for high quality, redshift-independent distances. A key component of EDD is the Color Magnitude Diagrams/Tip of the Red Giant Branch (CMDs/TRGB) catalog, which provides information on the stellar content of nearby galaxies observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Here we provide a decadal update to this catalog, which has now doubled in size to over 500 galaxies. We highlight the additions to our data reduction and analysis techniques, and provide examples of the science that has been made possible with this large data set. We find the TRGB to be a reliable measure for distance, and we aim to extend its distance coverage with HST to every galaxy within 10 Mpc. In the near-future, the combination of the James Webb Space Telescope and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will dramatically increase the number of targets within our grasp.