Dwarf galaxy found merging into the Milky Way
January 12, 2006 | Source: KurzweilAI
A huge but very faint structure, containing hundreds of thousands of stars spread over an area nearly 5,000 times the size of a full moon, has been discovered and mapped by astronomers of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II).
At an estimated distance of 30,000 light years from Earth, the structure lies well within the confines of the Milky Way Galaxy. However, it does not follow any of Milky Way’s three main components: a flattened disk of stars in which the sun resides, a bulge of stars at the center of the Galaxy and an extended, roughly spherical, stellar halo. Instead, the researchers believe that the most likely interpretation of the new structure is a dwarf galaxy that is merging into the Milky Way.
The new dwarf galaxy is found toward the constellation Virgo.