We present an analysis of the kinematics of fourteen satellites of the Milky Way (MW). We use proper motions (PMs) from the Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) and line-of-sight velocities (vlos) available in the literature to derive the systemic 3D motion of these systems. For six of them, namely the Carina, Draco, Fornax, Sculptor, Sextans, and Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph), we study the internal kinematics projecting the stellar PMs into radial, VR (expansion/contraction), and tangential, VT (rotation), velocity components with respect to the centre-of-mass. We find significant rotation in the Carina (|VT| = 9.6 ± 4.5 km s−1 ), Fornax (|VT| = 2.8 ± 1.3 km s−1 ), and Sculptor (|VT| = 3.0 ± 1.0 km s−1 ) dSphs. Besides the Sagittarius dSph, these are the first measurements of internal rotation in the plane of the sky in the MW’s classical dSphs. All galaxies except Carina show |VT|/σv < 1. We find that slower rotators tend to show, on average, larger sky-projected ellipticity (as expected for a sample with random viewing angles), and are located at smaller Galactocentric distances (as expected for tidal stirring scenarios in which rotation is transformed into random motions as satellites sink into the parent halo). However, these trends are small and not statistically significant, indicating that rotation has not played a dominant role in shaping the 3D structure of these galaxies. Either tidal stirring had a weak impact on the evolution of these systems, or it perturbed them with similar efficiency regardless of their current Galactocentric distance.

We present a kinematic study of six dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph) satellites of the Milky Way (MW), namely Carina, Draco, Fornax, Sculptor, Sextans, and Ursa Minor. We combine proper motions (PMs) from the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) and line-of-sight velocities (vlos) from the literature to derive their 3D internal kinematics and to study the presence of internal velocity gradients. We find velocity gradients along the line-of-sight for Carina, Draco, Fornax, and Ursa Minor, at ≥1σ level of significance . The value of such gradients appears to be related to the orbital history of the dwarfs, indicating that the interaction with the Milky Way (MW) is causing them. Dwarfs that are close to the MW and moving towards their orbits pericentres show, on average, larger velocity gradients. On the other hand, dwarfs that have recently left their orbits pericentres show no significant gradients. Lastly, dwarfs located at large Galactocentric distances show gradients with an intermediate intensity. Our results would indicate that the torque caused by the strong tidal forces exerted by the MW induces a strong velocity gradient when the dwarfs approach their orbits pericentres. During the pericentre passage, the rapid change in the forces direction would disrupt such gradient, which may steadily recover as the galaxies recede. We assess our findings by analyzing dwarfs satellites from the TNG50 simulation. We find a significant increase in the intensity of the detected gradients as the satellites approach their pericentre, followed by a sharp drop as they abandon it, supporting our results for the dSphs of the MW.

We present a kinematic study of six dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph) satellites of the Milky Way (MW), namely Carina, Draco, Fornax, Sculptor, Sextans, and Ursa Minor. We combine proper motions (PMs) from the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) and lineof-sight velocities (𝑣 los ) from the literature to derive their 3D internal kinematics and to study the presence of internal velocity gradients. We find significant velocity gradients along the line-of-sight for Carina, Draco, Fornax, and Ursa Minor. The value of such gradients appears to be related to the orbital history of the dwarfs, indicating that the interaction with the Milky Way (MW) is causing them. Dwarfs that are close to the MW and moving towards their orbits pericentres show, on average, larger velocity gradients. On the other hand, dwarfs that have recently left their orbits pericentres show no significant gradients. Lastly, dwarfs located at large Galactocentric distances show gradients with an intermediate intensity. Our results would indicate that the torque caused by the strong tidal forces exerted by the MW induces a strong velocity gradient when the dwarfs approach their orbits pericentres. During the pericentre passage, the rapid change in the forces direction would disrupt such gradient, which may steadily recover as the galaxies recede. We assess our findings by analyzing dwarfs satellites from the TNG50 simulation. We find a significant increase in the intensity of the detected gradients as the satellites approach their pericentre, followed by a sharp drop as they abandon it, supporting our results for the dSphs of the MW.