A stellar halo is the component of a galaxy's galactic halo that contains stars. The stellar halo extends far outside a galaxy's brightest regions and typically contains its oldest and most metal-poor stars.
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👉 Stellar halo in the context of Stellar stream
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space.
Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as the internal kinematics of more distant galaxies. Measurement of the kinematics of stars in different subcomponents of the Milky Way including the thin disk, the thick disk, the bulge, and the stellar halo provides important information about the formation and evolutionary history of our Galaxy. Kinematic measurements can also identify exotic phenomena such as hypervelocity stars escaping from the Milky Way, which are interpreted as the result of gravitational encounters of binary stars with the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center.
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Stellar halo in the context of Galactic halo
A galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of a galaxy comprise its halo:
- the stellar halo
- the galactic corona (hot gas, i.e. a plasma)
- the dark matter halo
The distinction between the halo and the main body of the galaxy is clearest in spiral galaxies, where the spherical shape of the halo contrasts with the flat disc. In an elliptical galaxy, there is no sharp transition between the other components of the galaxy and the halo.