THE EDGE OF THE YOUNG GALACTIC DISK

In this work, we report and discuss the detection of two distant diffuse stellar groups in the third Galactic quadrant. They are composed of young stars, with spectral types ranging from late O to late B, and lie at galactocentric distances between 15 and 20 kpc. These groups are located in the area of two cataloged open clusters (VdB-Hagen 04 and Ruprecht 30), projected toward the Vela-Puppis constellations, and within the core of the Canis Major overdensity. Their reddening and distances have been estimated by analyzing their color-color and color-magnitude diagrams, derived from deep UBV photometry. The existence of young star aggregates at such extreme distances from the Galactic center challenges the commonly accepted scenario in which the Galactic disk has a sharp cutoff at about 14 kpc from the Galactic center and indicates that it extends to much greater distances (as also supported by the recent detection of CO molecular complexes well beyond this distance). While the groups we find in the area of Ruprecht 30 are compatible with the Orion and Norma-Cygnus spiral arms, respectively, the distant group we identify in the region of VdB-Hagen 04 lies in the external regions of the Norma-Cygnus arm, at a galactocentric distance (similar to 20 kpc) where no young stars have been detected so far in the optical.