The Galaxy, Magellanic System and the Local Group
(Cioni, Drew, Kobayashi, Lucas, Napiwotzki, Ryan, Thompson)
All astronomy comes together when trying to understand the resolved stellar populations in our own Galaxy and the other members of the Local Group. The locally relevant versions of the big questions as to how galaxies form and evolve, and how they work as complex systems, can be posed in acute form given the possibility to spatially resolve the constituent stellar, gaseous and dust components.
In CAR we have observational interests both in the present-day organisation of the Milky Way and Magellanic System via our several surveys, and in the history of our locality probed via the study of stellar abundances and kinematics. We also have the capability to perform chemodynamical simulations that will in time be testable against e.g. the results of ESA's Gaia mission.
This image shows the central part of the Milky Way together with the Magellanic Clouds, our near neighbours (lower right), as they might be seen by the human eye, if our eyes could expose-and-integrate as cameras do. It is an excerpt from the all-sky image published by ESO in 2009 to celebrate the Year of Astronomy. (see here for further details).
More about the Milky Way panorama