NASA Hubble Discovers Two Dwarf Galaxies

IN SPACE - MARCH 3: (FILE PHOTO) In this image released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble Space Telescope is backdropped against black space as the Space Shuttle Columbia, with a crew of seven astronauts on board, eases closer March 3, 2002 in order to latch its 50-foot-long robotic arm onto a fixture on the giant telescope. NASA plans to replace the Hubble telescope with the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and plans to deorbit the Hubble telescope sometime in 2010. According to Anne Kinney, division director of astronomy and physics at NASA headquarters, NASA states August 1, 2003 that it is firmly committed to the new JWST, a deep-space observatory due for launch in 2011 on a European Ariane 5 rocket. 

Two dwarf galaxies have recently been discovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. After being trapped in a cosmic void for more than 100 million years, these galaxies are ready to start a star birth.

Dwarf galaxies are faint and small, so finding them in the vast solar system is quite difficult. Yet, thanks to NASAs Hubble's sharp vision, two have been spotted. The two dwarf galaxies discovered have been named Pisces A and B. Such discovery of Pisces A and B would help researchers further understand the evolution and formation of a dwarf galaxy.

According to Hubble observations, the two particular dwarf galaxies are late bloomers due to having spent so much time in a Local Void. The Local Void is a region in the universe which has a sparse population of galaxies, and is approximately 150 million light-years across.

"These Hubble images may be snapshots of what present-day dwarf galaxies may have been like at earlier epochs. Studying these and other similar galaxies can provide further clues to dwarf galaxy formation and evolution," stated Erik Tollerud, the lead researcher from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, adding, "These galaxies may have spent most of their history in the void. If this is true, the void environment would have slowed their evolution. Evidence for the galaxies' void address is that their hydrogen content is somewhat high relative to similar galaxies."

Tollerud along with his team hopes to discover more galaxies with the use of the Hubble. His plans include scouring the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System Survey, also known as PanSTARRS, for even more dwarf galaxies. Aside from NASA's Hubble, other wide-survey telescopes such as the large radio telescope in China and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) in Chile would help in the discovery of dwarf galaxies.