Description
The Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy is the only galaxy of this type that shows clearly episodic star formation separated by long pauses. Here we present metallicities for 437 radial velocity members of this Galactic satellite. The metallicities and radial velocities were measured as part of a Large Programme with the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory, Chile. We obtained medium-resolution spectroscopy with the multiobject spectrograph FLAMES. Our target red giants cover the entire projected surface area of Carina. Our spectra are centered at the near-infrared CaII triplet, which is a well-established metallicity indicator for old and intermediate-age red giants. The resulting data sample provides the largest collection of spectroscopically derived metallicities for a Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxy to date.
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