The Mixture of Stellar Populations in M 32

Núcleo de Astrofísica Teórica da Univ. Cruzeiro do Sul, Rua Galvão Bueno, 868, sala 105, 01506-000, São Paulo, Brazil

e-mail: paula.coelho@cruzeirodosul.edu.br

Abstract

We studied the stellar population in M 32 by means of full spectral fitting. Three different galactic radii were analysed, from the nuclear region out to 2 arcmin from the centre. As a main result we propose that an ancient and an intermediate-age population co-exist in M 32, and that the balance between these two populations change between the nucleus and outside one effective radius in the sense that the contribution from the intermediate population is larger at the nuclear region. We retrieve a smaller signal of a young population at all radii whose origin is unclear.