Hellenica World

Dwarf galaxy


A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of up to several billion stars, a small number compared to our own Milky Way's 200-400 billion stars. The Large Magellanic Cloud, containing over 30 billion stars, is sometimes classified as a dwarf galaxy while others consider it a full-fledged galaxy going around the Milky Way galaxy.

There are many dwarf galaxies in the Local Group: these small galaxies frequently orbit around larger galaxies, such as the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy.

The Milky Way has 14 known dwarf galaxies orbiting it. See Milky Way for more information.

Dwarf galaxies come in many different morphologies:

* Elliptical galaxy: dwarf elliptical galaxy (dE) and its subtype dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph)

* Irregular galaxy: dwarf irregular galaxy (dI)

* Spiral galaxy: dwarf spiral galaxy

The recently coined term, hobbit galaxy has been used to describe galaxies smaller and dimmer than dwarf galaxies.[1],[2]

Partial list of dwarf galaxies

* Aquarius Dwarf
* Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy
* I Zwicky 18
* Irregular Galaxy IC 10
* Large Magellanic Cloud
* NGC 1569
* NGC 1705
* Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
* Phoenix Dwarf
* Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy
* Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
* Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy
* Sculptor Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
* Sextans A
* Sextans Dwarf
* Small Magellanic Cloud
* Tucana Dwarf
* Ursa Minor Dwarf
* Willman 1
* Carina Dwarf
* Draco Dwarf
* Fornax Dwarf
* Leo II (dwarf galaxy)

See also

* Galaxy morphological classification

* List of nearest galaxies

Links

* Milky Way Satellite Galaxies

* SPACE.com article on "hobbit galaxies"

* Science article on "hobbit galaxies"


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/"
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License