Hubble Reveals a Previously Unknown Dwarf Galaxy Just 7 Million Light Years Away

The L.A. Times reports that the Hubble Space Telescope's ongoing survey work has discovered a dwarf universe a mere 7 million light years away: While only just recently discovered using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, the galaxy known as KKs3 has been around for a long while. Astronomers led by Igor Karachentsev of the Special Astrophysical Observatory in Karachai-Cherkessia, Russia, showed that some 74% of KKs3’s star mass was formed in the universe’s early years, at least 12 billion years ago. Most of the tiny galaxy’s stars are old and dim, making it a fascinating fossil that could help astronomers understand what ancient galactic environments looked like.

Comments

Dwarf Universe?

[splatacaster]

Didn't know we discovered entire tiny universes yet.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, It's not just 7 million light years away. It's 7 million light years away and slightly to the ana and to the left. That Dwarf Galaxy is that's universe entire content making it a Dwarf Galaxy Universe.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus proving the multiverse theory. Because I read it on /. :)

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[MrBigInThePants]

What exactly about the galaxy makes it a dwarf as opposed to a little-verse? Its galactic arms are too long for its body and its core is over sized?!

Why are not the PC brigade up in arms about this obviously inappropriate reference.

And since we is 7 million light years "mere". I mean we are not a universe, we are human. Its a long-assed way for us!

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You should send the submitter an internet about his mistake.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Waffle Iron]

I think that's the vendor which provided the costumes and props for the original "Wizard of Oz" film.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[thegarbz]

You should send the submitter an internet about his mistake.

Well this is really a problem for the editor. Not that Timothy would know what to do with an internet.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I discovered a dwarf universe the other day. But to my horror I discovered it was populated entirely with Bennet Haselton clones, writing op-ed stories for slashdot, so I swore never to reveal its location.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The submitter is probably a well-meaning English major who wanted to avoid repetition by replacing "galaxy" with a "synonym".

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[laurencetux]

there is a neat trick that sciencey folks can do called "Make it a jargon term" that can bypass 99% of the PC folks. as fas as 7Mega light years being "mere" well when you are dealing with Billions and Billions then stuff that is only millions is mere.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

They prefer to be called small universes.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Earh is 50 kiloparsecs from the Large Magellic Cloud, 778 kiloParsecs from the Andromeda Galaxy. And 2 Megaparsecs from this newly discovered galaxy. Apparently. KKs is an isolated spheroidal galaxy-- not a satellite of the Milky way, Andromeda or even Triangulum, nor is it clustered with other dwarf galaxies in the local group.
The paper says

Since 2008, only three galaxies had been newly discovered in a spherical shell between radii 1 and 3Mpc around the Local Group. Two of them are dIrrs, UGC 4879 (Kopylov et al. 2008) and Leo P (Giovanelli et al. 2013), and the third one, KK 258 (Karachentsev et al. 2014), belongs to the transition type dTr with minimal but detectable gas and young stars. Here we report the discovery in this volume of a dwarf spheroidal system KKs 3 ([KK2000] 03 = SGC 0224.3–7345 in the nomencla- ture of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database) at a distance of D = 2.12 ± 0.07 Mpc and well removed from any other known galaxy.

So the interesting feature isn't that it's close. It's that it's distant from any galaxy.

Re: Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a verse than a universe.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Earh is 50 kiloparsecs from the Large Magellic Cloud, 778 kiloParsecs from the Andromeda Galaxy. And 2 Megaparsecs from this newly discovered galaxy. Apparently. KKs is an isolated spheroidal galaxy-- not a satellite of the Milky way, Andromeda or even Triangulum, nor is it clustered with other dwarf galaxies in the local group.

Good explanation. I had to look up that the Large Magellic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Then I had to educate myself on the fact that the Andromeda galaxy is NOT the closest galaxy to us ... just the closest 'spiral galaxy'. Lastly, I was thrown by "2 Megaparsecs" instead of "2000 kiloparsecs". Reading too fast .. my bad. But, IMO, it is preferable to use the same units when possible. 50, 778, and 2000 makes for quicker visual comparison than 50 kilos, 778 kilos, and 2 megas.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[RockDoctor]

I suspect that the original journalist (OK, almost certainly not "original", in any sense ; the most proximate journalist in the chain from submitter to the scientists who originally did the work) is mis-using a literary flourish from a century or so ago when what we now call "galaxies" were frequently described as "island universes."

This was before Hubble (the guy for whom the Hubble Space Telescope was named) demonstrated that
(1) other galaxies are far, far further away than most clouds of stars seen at parallaxable distances from Earth ;
(2) the same physics apply in those distant accumulations of stars as in our corner of the universe (up to the subtle interplay of nuclear physics and optical opacity that controls the oscillation of Delta-Cephii type variable stars);
and (3) those star clouds are receding from us at velocities proportional to their distance fomr us (determined in step (2), above).

The phrase "island universe" was out of favour before world war 2, but still resurfaces in popular work, as I suspect has happened here.

Re:Dwarf Universe?

[Jeremy Erwin]

But, IMO, it is preferable to use the same units when possible.

That can get cumbersome:

"Proxima Centauri lies about 1.1 parsecs from our sun, but the observable universe has a radius of 14,000,000,000 parsecs".

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have meant an universal dwarf.

They prefer to be called

[Anonymous Coward]

little universes.

Please be PC

[Anonymous Coward]

They like to be called "Little Universes"

Hubble EOL

[UncleWilly]

Isn't the Hubble past end-of-life? (per specs) Simply amazing. The Hubble telescope is like my old Jeep. Old technology, not much to look at, lots of dented/squeaky bits, but it just keeps ticking without much maintenance.

Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[TheNinjaroach]

Sorry to hijack, but I'm leaving this post (with UID) to warn other Slashdotters to NOT order from Slashdot Deals.

I asked my girlfriend for the cheap pair of headphones they are selling over there. She received a blank shipment confirmation (no tracking number, no ship date, all basically details missing from a form letter) and then waited two more weeks before following up with customer service. They told her her order still hadn't shipped (19 days after ordering!) but then it was received the very next day.

What did we receive? A retail package for the headphones... without any headphones on it. All the accessories were still there but somebody ripped the headphones out before shipping the package.

It's been 22 days and this issue has yet to be resolved. Bottom line: DO NOT order from Slashdot Deals.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[thegarbz]

I wonder if it's the same editors who don't know the difference between a galaxy and a universe who are handling your shipping order.

Thanks for the heads up.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[Esra Erimez]

I see the problem, you're on Slashdot and have a girlfriend. As these two conditions may not exist at the same time, you have broken the fundamental laws of the universe. Now, unlike Schrodinger's cat, no matter how many times you open the box, there will never be a cheap pair of headphones.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[Crudely_Indecent]

Somewhere, there's an shipping and receiving clerk jamming out to some awesome tunes on his new headphones!

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[dryeo]

Originally the Milky Way was the Universe and when other galaxies were discovered they were also called universes and this use persisted in some dialects of English.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[Kjella]

Well since we haven't invented human cloning yet - though I can't wait to hear Bennet Haselton's opinion on the matter - that should be the one and only right? I'll take all four pairs of headphones, delivery to the galaxy known as KKs3. Warp speed delivery please, that'll be 7 million years of blissful silence before his radio signals reach earth.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[thegarbz]

Irrelevant. This is a tech site with tech news for supposedly nerds. Timothy deserves the mocking he is getting. If you want to pull the dialect number then go post on some obscure news for English history buffs website and not a website which among other things has a readership made up of astronomers.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[dryeo]

I'll assume it was just a quote.

Re:Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[thegarbz]

Still not okay. If it was a quote and written in an unexpected way then it's the editor's job to make readers aware of it by way of explanation or at least a [Sic]. Either way it makes no sense that the title and first sentence are inconsistent.

Dark Matter?

[mujadaddy]

They want us to think there needs to be a whole new particle, eh? TFS makes it seem like the galaxy is just slightly dim, so, are we just having tons of mini clusters being washed out of our instruments' views?

Missing information

[phozz bare]

Would it be too much to inform the curious readers as to where in the sky this galaxy is located?

Re:Missing information

[mrsquid0]

RA = 02:24:44.4
Dec = 73:30:51

Unfortunately it is a bit too far south to see from Canada.

Re:Missing information

[PPH]

Somewhere in the back of a crowded elevator. Tha's why it was so hard to spot.

Re:Missing information

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

From the fucking paper

The low surface brightness object KKs 3 with J2000 coordinates: RA = 02h24m44.s4, Dec. = â'73*30'51" was detected in full sky surveys by Karachentseva & Karachentsev (2000) and Whiting, Hau & Irwin (2002) as a potential dSph galaxy neighbouring the Local Group.

Re:Missing information

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Fucking Slashdot. You'd think Unicode was tricky. Dec. = -73*30'51"

Re:Missing information

[phozz bare]

Thanks. I was going to inquire about the difficulty of seeing Cassiopeia from Canada, when I found (thanks Wikipedia!) that you had missed the negative sign in the Declination... anyway, apparently this object is located in the constellation Hydrus near the celestial south pole. Why this was so difficult to write in the summary or the linked article is beyond me.

Re:Missing information

[phozz bare]

Thanks. My point was that Slashdot, as well as the linked article, failed to report the most interesting and relevant information pertaining to the subject. That you had to seek the scientific paper and download a 2.2 MB document to obtain this information merely strengthens my argument. Also, like mrsquid0 before you, you broke the minus sign. :)

Re:Missing information

[phozz bare]

Oh you corrected yourself, sorry.

Re:Missing information

[Scarletdown]

Would it be too much to inform the curious readers as to where in the sky this galaxy is located?

Up? :D

Re:Missing information

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be gay

Re:Missing information

[angel'o'sphere]

How did you make that star being a superscript? or did you actually use html for that, and if so, why not using the degrees sign then?

Re:Missing information

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more gay dudes on Slashdot then on Grindr.

Re:Missing information

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more gay dudes on Slashdot then on Grindr.

really...what's grindr? ....I mean, um, some of my best gays are fiends. ...friends are gays.... fiendishly gay friendly....

Re:Missing information

[mrsquid0]

Yes, the dec should be -73:30:51. Sorry about the cut-and-paste error. The southern sky seems to have all of the good galaxies.

Re:Missing information

[quenda]

Would it be too much to inform the curious readers as to where in the sky this galaxy is located?

Up? :D

Nice guess, but wrong, for you Northern-hemisphere residents. So its a bit hard for you to see without a neutrino-camera.

Re:Missing information

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really a 5-digit UID who never noticed that ascii 42 is a superscript star?

Yes, at EOL with no chance at extension.

[Ellis D. Tripp]

There is no current way to service it even if NASA wanted to. It was launched and serviced by the space shuttles, which are all museum pieces at this point.

Another place we won't be able to visit

[ArcadeMan]

First you classify them as "Dwarf" and then you go on to say things like "Most of the tiny galaxy’s stars are old and dim, making it a fascinating fossil that could help astronomers understand what ancient galactic environments looked like."

KKs3's reply was "Get off my lawn, you damn dirty apes!"

I think this can't be real

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, first-off, even if they were communicating with video -- it's often difficult to know how tall someone is on screen.

So how do we really know they're dwarves in that galaxy? Maybe they're really, really big.

Re:I think this can't be real

[Anonymous Coward]

Also... I just want to say that I don't think it's fair to call the dwarf galaxy's stars "old and dim". Just because their celebrities are old, doesn't make them stupid.

Re:I think this can't be real

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation does not imply causation.

Dwarfs obviously have longer life spans. Dwarfs are also generally dimmer(especially celebrities.). So they are not stupid because they are old, they are old and stupid because they are dwarfs.

Re:I think this can't be real

[Bob_Who]

Just be glad its not porno dwarf galaxies. That is just to hard to "unsee".

Don't Order From Slashdot Deals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you buy another 3 pairs you'll be entitled to a free Bennet Haselton!

Multi-verse theory confirmed by Hubble Telescope!

[Lorem_Ipsum]

And it's a great day for astronomy folks... what? It's a typo? I'm shocked, shocked to find that an article on Slashdot was not capably edited prior to submission.

Impact on dark matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are dwarf galaxies like this and potentially others then is it possible they help account for what is "dark matter"?

Consider that current modeling wouldn't even include the possibility that entities such as this exist.

Re:Impact on dark matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

for pity's sake, no, and if you spend even two seconds on google you'll find why not. and "current modeling" not only includes the possibilities that entities such as this exist, but actually introduces the issue that the model tells us how much "luminous matter", that is basically anything that interacts with light, there is and *it's more than we've observed*. so this kind of thing actually helps fill in a gap between the amount of normal matter we've observed and the amount we believe exists.

Old news is old

[Tom Womack]

I'm not quite sure why the LA Times is reporting this today, when the galaxy was discovered in 2000 and the preprint of the paper describing the age determination using Hubble data ( arXiv:1411.1674 ) appeared in the Arxiv in November.

Re:Old news is old

[quenda]

I'm not quite sure why the LA Times is reporting this today, when the galaxy was discovered in 2000

The light took 7 million years to get here. What's a few more?

Only 7 million light years away?

[Smurf]

Then let's go for Spring break!

Dwarf Galaxy

[rossdee]

What version of Android does it run?

Re:Dwarf Galaxy

[Neil Boekend]

Replicators run it.

Re:Hubble EOL Hardly..

[__aanbvm4272]

Watching a NASA video on you tube about the Hubble Telescope's history; it said '5 upgrades have been made.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?... That keeps it fairly relevant in the search from 'outer' space, as far as we can see outward without an atmosphere. The images still astound me! And make me wonder about how we are 'plugged in'... and is that itself not wonderful? YES!

orly?

[slashmydots]

I was watching the bubble universe episode of Doctor Who while I read that. Blew my freakin mind lol.

Dwarf Galaxy

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't expect a sci-fi rendition of Dwarf Fortress to be released in such a short time.

is Hubble on duty 7 mln years now?

[osiaq]

Captain, I'm serious, help me. Light needs 7 mln. years to reach Hubble, right? How can it see it before that time? Wormhole? Dont mark me troll please, i really don't get it

Re:is Hubble on duty 7 mln years now?

[Anonymous Coward]

what?

Don't worry, the prices are poor

[drinkypoo]

Sorry to hijack, but I'm leaving this post (with UID) to warn other Slashdotters to NOT order from Slashdot Deals.

Don't worry, everyone else found cheaper prices elsewhere on everything they carry which is interesting, I know I did.