1995A&A...297..338C

The Small Magellanic Cloud-Large Magellanic Cloud (SMC-LMC) bridge has been the subject of a limited number of studies. It is the closest bridge among a number of known intergalactic bridges situated in groups of galaxies. Because of tidal interactions, star formation is likely to be very active in these bridges, and the details of these interactions can be investigated through the study of hot stars; UV wide-field telescopes are especially suited to this class of work. A new such observation of the SMC in the far UV (1400-1800A) was obtained with the FAUST telescope (SSL, Berkeley; LAS, Marseille) flown aboard the space shuttle in March, 1992 as part of the ATLAS-1 mission. A previous detection by the Very-Wide-Field Camera (VWFC; LAS, Marseille) aboard Spacelab-1 revealed the stellar UV contribution of the Shapley Wing of the SMC in the direction of the LMC. The much deeper (4.6 magnitudes) FAUST observations, with a resolution thrice better than that of the VWFC, confirm this extension as part of the bridge and allow a clear identification of 29 UV-bright stars with known optical spectrophotometry and radial velocities.