|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
. | ![]() |
. |
|
![]() |
![]() by Brooks Hays Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia (UPI) Dec 23, 2014
The Milky Way galaxy has a new cosmic neighbor -- galaxy KKs3 -- discovered thanks to newly collected data courtesy of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The dwarf spheroidal galaxy lies 700 million miles away and is located in the southern sky in vicinity of the constellation Hydrus. It's only the second known isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the Local Group, a collection of some 54 galaxies that includes both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. With a seemingly never-ending stream of cosmic data for astronomers to parse -- collected by dozens of observatories, on the ground and in the sky -- finding a tiny galaxy amid the noise is not easy. The total mass of KKs3's stars is about one ten-thousandth the total of the Milky Way's material. "Finding objects like KKs3 is painstaking work, even with observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope," Dimitry Makarov, a researcher at Russia's Special Astrophysical Observatory and the leader of the Russian-American team that discovered the galaxy, said in a recent press release. "But with persistence, we're slowly building up a map of our local neighborhood, which turns out to be less empty than we thought," Makarov added. "It may be that are a huge number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies out there, something that would have profound consequences for our ideas about the evolution of the cosmos." Researchers hope the task of locating other tiny galactic neighbors like KKs3 will become a bit easier when the massive James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope come online in the near future. The discovery of Makarov and his colleagues was detailed this week in the Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society.
Related Links Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It
|
![]() |
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service. |