Despite having run the highest - resolution simulation to date, Wetzel continues to push forward, and he is in the process of running an even higher - resolution, more - sophisticated simulation that will allow him to model the very
faintest dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way.
Deep imaging of that region by the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii turned up an
optically faint dwarf galaxy that the VLA subsequently discovered also continuously emits low - level radio waves, typical of a galaxy with an active nucleus perhaps indicative of a central supermassive black hole.
It was once possible to
confuse faint dwarf galaxies like Segue 2 with globular clusters — tightly bound clumps of stars that are also known to orbit larger galaxies like the Milky Way.
The discovery of numerous
faint dwarf galaxies in Fornax suggests that the «missing satellites» are now being found.
We also needed to add in the contribution of a more abundant population
of faint dwarf galaxies,» lead author Hakim Atek, from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, said in a statement.
Scientists can only see
the faintest dwarf galaxies when they are nearby, and had previously only found a few of them.
Jean - Paul Kneib, co-author of the study from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, explains, «Clusters in the Frontier Fields act as powerful natural telescopes and unveil
these faint dwarf galaxies that would otherwise be invisible.»
Using the precise VLA position, researchers used the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to make a visible - light image that identified
a faint dwarf galaxy at the location of the bursts.
It is
a faint dwarf galaxy, made up of only about 1,000 stars, located at the edge of the Milky Way, and seems unremarkable in all aspects until you measure its mass.
The stellar density of
the faint dwarf galaxies (one star per million cubic parsecs) is about a million times lower than that in the neighbourhood of the Sun, or almost a billion times lower than in the bulge of the Milky Way.
All of the brightest and largest galaxies within 20 million light years are marked on this map together with many of
the fainter dwarf galaxies.
An international team of researchers led by Aaron Romanowsky of San José State University has used the Subaru Telescope to identify
a faint dwarf galaxy disrupting around a nearby giant spiral galaxy.