Astrometry of Galactic Star-Forming Region Sharpless 269 with VERA: Parallax Measurements and Constraint on Outer Rotation Curve

Abstract

We have performed high-precision astrometry of H$_2$O maser sources in the Galactic star-forming region Sharpless 269 (S269) with VERA. We successfully detected a trigonometric parallax of $189 \pm 8 \mu$as, corresponding to a source distance of $5.28^{+0.24}_{-0.22}$ kpc. This is the smallest parallax ever measured, and the first one detected beyond 5 kpc. The source distance as well as the proper motions were used to constrain the outer rotation curve of the Galaxy, demonstrating that the difference of rotation velocities at the Sun and at S269 (which is 13.1 kpc away from the Galaxy’s center) is less than 3%. This gives the strongest constraint on the flatness of the outer rotation curve, and provides a direct confirmation of the existence of a large amount of dark matter in the Galaxy’s outer disk.