Astronomers have found a new dwarf galaxy near us

Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf galaxy only 30 million light-years away. This was a surprise discovery made during the study of the NGC 6752 globular cluster.

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope from NASA / ESA. While they were studying some of the weaker and older stars of the NGC 6752 globular group, they unexpectedly discovered the new dwarf galaxy, which they called the astronomy equivalent of the world. a living fossil from the beginning of the Universe.

The new discovery was reported in the newspaper Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

How did astronomers discover the new dwarf galaxy?

The purpose of their observations was to use the stars to measure the age of the globular group, but they also discovered the dwarf galaxy. By measuring the luminosity and temperature of certain visible stars, astronomers concluded that these stars did not belong to the globular group as part of the Milky Way, but were actually distant from several million years ago. light.

The galaxy has been called Bedin 1 by astronomers. It's a modest size and is elongated. It is about 3,000 light-years away, which is only a tiny fraction of the size of the Milky Way and is very pale. This means that astronomers have classified it as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy.

The ESA / Hubble Information Center said: "The discovery of Bedin 1 was a fortuitous discovery. Very few Hubble images allow you to see objects as pale, and they only cover a small part of the sky. Future wide field of view telescopes, such as the WFIRST telescope, will have cameras covering a much larger area of ​​the sky and could find many more.

A living fossil from the beginning of the universe

The ESA / Hubble Information Center added: "From the properties of its stars, astronomers have been able to deduce that the galaxy was 13 billion years old – almost as old as the Universe itself. Because of its isolation – which has resulted in little interaction with other galaxies – and its age, Bedin 1 is the astronomical equivalent of a living fossil from the early Universe. "