Researchers have discovered seven dwarf galaxies

Using a new type of telescope, researchers have spotted seven previously unseen galaxies near the M101 spiral galaxy.

Thanks to a new robotic telescope dubbed the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, researchers at Yale University in the US have found seven previously unseen galaxies.

The Dragonfly has eight telephoto lenses with a special coating that suppresses internally scattered light, reports Jim Shelton at Yale News. Thanks to these lenses, the telescope was able to capture these ‘ghostly’ galaxies, which diffuse natural light.

Astronomer Pieter van Dokkum, chair of Yale’s astronomy department, explained to Shelton that The Dragonfly’s lenses have been used in sporting events, such as the World Cup, to get unprecedented detail, but this is the first time that scientists have used them to look at the sky.

“We knew there was a whole set of science questions that could be answered if we could see diffuse objects in the sky,” van Dokkum said.

The astronomers are still analysing the dwarf galaxies and collecting more data to determine their exact location. The galaxies could be orbiting the M101 spiral galaxy, or they could be a bit farther away. If they are farther away “it may be that these seven galaxies are the tip of the iceberg, and there are thousands of them in the sky that we haven’t detected yet,” explained lead author of the study, astronomer Allison Merrit, to Shelton.

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to learn more about these newly found galaxies, but the ‘seven dwarves’ could provide information on dark matter, galaxy evolution and even a new class of objects in space.

The results of the study have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.