Observing the globular cluster NGC 6752 with the Hubble space telescope, astronomers made an unexpected discovery: they discovered a small dim galaxy Bedin 1 located only 30 million light years from Earth.
The main goal of our work was to determine the age of one of the globular clusters of the Milky Way, 13.5 thousand light-years distant from us, for which we studied the population of white dwarfs in it. However, looking through the data, we unexpectedly noticed a compact group of stars. After a thorough analysis of their brightness and temperature, it became clear that these luminaries do not belong to the cluster of NGC 6752, but are several million light years away.
The open space neighbor, designated Bedin 1 (in honor of the discoverer), is a modest-sized elongated galaxy with a total length of 3,000 light years (30 times smaller than the diameter of the Milky Way). It is not only tiny, but also incredibly dim, therefore it was classified as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, which is also characterized by the absence of dust and old star populations. Currently, there are 36 known galaxies of this type living in the Local Group, and 22 of them are satellites of the Milky Way.
While dwarf spheroidal galaxies are not uncommon, Bedin 1 has some remarkable features – the distance to it is quite accurately determined, and it is extremely isolated, as it is 2 million light-years from the nearest large galaxy NGC 6744.
By determining the properties of the stars in Bedin 1, astronomers were able to estimate its age, which turned out to be about 13 billion years old. Because it has been lonely throughout its history and has hardly interacted with other galaxies, Bedin 1 is the astronomical equivalent of a fossil from the era of the early Universe.
Bedin 1, a galaxy near the Milky Way
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