The Vista Variables in the Vía Lactea (VVV) is an ongoing large ESO
public survey using the VISTA Telescope at Cerro Paranal, aimed at
obtainig a deep near-infrared (YZJH) view of 520 deg2 of the Galactic
bulge and the southern disc. Furthermore, the VVV also obtains
multi-year Ks-band imaging of the whole survey area. The deep near-IR
color-magnitude diagrams and variability information allows the mapping
of the structure of the Milky Way thorough tracers such as red clump
stars, RR Lyrae variables and classical Cepheids.
In my talk, I will provide an overview of the survey, as well as
highlights of the science being done by the VVV Science Team, such as
the discovery of close brown dwarfs, new globular and open clusters,
determination of the (3D) extintion towards the Galactic bulge, the
structure of the Galactic bulge, as well as the tracing of the spiral
arms in the "observational shadow" of the Milky Way.
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