A group of astronomers from institutions in the United States, Canada, and Spain discovered an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy called Tucana B.
According to the study, Tucana B is the first isolated and extinct astronomical object that has been identified in the extreme outskirts of the Local Group, a designation given to the set of galaxies made up of three main spiral-shaped systems: the Via Milky Way, Andromeda and the Triangle.
Ultrafaint dwarf galaxies (UFD) are those galaxies that are less luminous because they contain a large amount of dark matter.
The researchers, led by David J. Sand of the University of Arizona, said they found Tucana B while conducting a visual search for ultrafaint satellite galaxies, which are companions to the Tucana dwarf spheroidal galaxy discovered in 1990 and located 3 .2 million light years from Earth.
It was determined that Tucana B is located regarding six degrees from the Tucana dwarf spheroidal galaxy and that the two are regarding 1.6 million light-years apart, tentatively concluding that the two systems are not physically close to each other. associates.
Likewise, it was calculated that the distance between Tucana B and Earth is around 4.5 million light years, in addition to its half-light radius being around 260 light years and its absolute magnitude (a measure that indicates the luminosity of a celestial object) is -6.9, which makes it comparable to the ultra-faint satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, RT reported in Spanish.
VTV/JR/JMP
