LONDON: Researchers have found rare satellite dwarf galaxies and candidate dwarf galaxies in orbit around our Milky Way, the largest number of such satellites ever found in one go.
The Milky Way galaxy now officially has new neighbours. Nine dwarf satellites, including three tiny galaxies, in orbit around our home galaxy were spotted by astronomers at the University of Cambridge in the skies of the southern hemisphere. The galaxies were found near the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud — the two largest and most well-known dwarf galaxies in orbit around the Milky Way.
“The discovery of so many satellites in such a small area of the sky was completely unexpected,” said lead author Dr Sergey Koposov of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “I could not believe my eyes.”
Discovered in newly released imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey, the find consists of three confirmed dwarf galaxies and six objects that could be either be dwarf galaxies or globular clusters — the difference being that the stars in globular clusters are not held together with dark matter.
Dwarf galaxies are the smallest of all the observed galactic structures, sometimes as small as just 5,000 stars — compared to the Milky Way’s estimated 200 to 400 billion stars. It is also estimated that they contain up to 99 percent dark matter, and just one percent observable matter, which makes them perfect for testing dark matter models.
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