Three Tiny ‘Stellar-Ghost-Town’ Dwarf Galaxies Discovered | NOIRLab
Cosmoview Episode 93: By combining data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and the Gemini South telescope, astronomers have investigated three ultra-faint dwarf galaxies that reside in a region of space isolated from the environmental influence of larger objects. The galaxies, located in the direction of the spiral galaxy NGC 300 and the Sculptor constellation, were found to contain only very old stars, supporting the theory that events in the early Universe cut star formation short in the smallest galaxies.
These images were taken for the DECam Legacy Survey (DECaLS), one of three public surveys that jointly imaged 14,000 square degrees of sky to provide targets for the ongoing Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Survey. DECals was conducted using the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.
Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies are the faintest type of galaxy in the Universe. Typically containing just a few hundred to a thousand stars—compared with the hundreds of billions that make up the Milky Way—these small diffuse structures usually hide inconspicuously among the many brighter residents of the sky. For this reason, astronomers have previously had the most luck finding them nearby, in the vicinity of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)
Duration: 1 minute, 33 seconds
Release Date: Jan. 15, 2025
#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #DwarfGalaxies #Sculptor #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #VictorBlancoTelescope #DECam #CTIO #CerroTololo #Chile #NOIRLab #NSF #AURA #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video
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