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The Milky Way now has 49 known satellite galaxies, and the new one is the fourth largest.
Link: New Scientist
Link: New Scientist
The size and mass of the galaxy, as well as its distance from the Milky Way, contribute to its classification as the largest found in over 20 years. It is estimated to be 10 times larger than any other known satellite galaxy orbiting our own.
This new galaxy, called Fornax, was discovered using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a project that aims to map hundreds of millions of galaxies in order to better understand the expansion of the universe. Researchers used DES data to identify faint stars in the outer regions of the Milky Way, which led them to the discovery of Fornax.
Fornax is located approximately 449,000 light-years away from the Milky Way. To put this into perspective, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter, so Fornax is quite a distance from our own galaxy.
Fornax is not only the largest satellite galaxy found orbiting the Milky Way in over 20 years, but it is also one of the closest to us. This makes it an important object for further study, as it can provide valuable insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies.
Fornax is classified as a dwarf galaxy, meaning it is significantly smaller than the Milky Way. It is also relatively young, with an estimated age of only 10 billion years compared to the Milky Way's age of 13 billion years. Additionally, Fornax is home to a large number of globular clusters, which are dense groups of stars that orbit around the galaxy's center.