The red clump is found to be split into two components along several sightlines toward the Galactic Bulge .
This split is detected with high significance toward the areas ( -3.5 < l < 1 ,b < -5 ) and ( l,b ) = ( 0 , +5.2 ) , i.e. , along the Bulge minor axis and at least 5 degrees off the plane .
The fainter ( hereafter “ main ” ) component is the one that more closely follows the distance-longitude relation of the Bulge red clump .
The main component is \sim 0.5 magnitudes fainter than the secondary component and with an overall approximately equal population .
For sightlines further from the plane , the difference in brightness increases , and more stars are found in the secondary component than in the main component .
The two components have very nearly equal ( V - I ) color .