There are 61 small galaxies confirmed to be within 420
kiloparsecs (1.4 million
light-years) of the Milky Way,[2] but not all of them are necessarily in orbit, and some may themselves be in orbit of other satellite galaxies. The only ones visible to the naked eye are the
Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds, which have been observed since prehistory. Measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 suggest the Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be orbiting the Milky Way.[3] Of the galaxies confirmed to be in orbit, the largest is the
Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, which has a diameter of 2.6 kiloparsecs (8,500 ly)[4] or roughly a twentieth that of the Milky Way.
Characteristics
Satellite galaxies that orbit from 1,000
ly (310
pc) of the edge of the
disc of the Milky Way Galaxy to the edge of the
dark matter halo of the Milky Way at 980,000 ly (300 kpc) from the center of the galaxy,[a] are generally depleted in hydrogen gas compared to those that orbit more distantly. This is because of their interactions with the dense hot gas halo of the Milky Way that strip cold gas from the satellites. Satellites beyond that region still retain copious quantities of gas.[5][6]
List
The Milky Way's satellite galaxies include the following:[7][2]
The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is currently in the process of being
consumed by the Milky Way and is expected to pass through it within the next 100 million years. The
Sagittarius Stream is a stream of stars in polar orbit around the Milky Way leeched from the Sagittarius Dwarf. The
Virgo Stellar Stream is a stream of stars that is believed to have once been an orbiting dwarf galaxy that has been completely distended by the Milky Way's gravity.
^Torrealba, G.; Koposov, S.E.; Belokurov, V.; Irwin, M. (13 April 2016). "The feeble giant. Discovery of a large and diffuse Milky Way dwarf galaxy in the constellation of Crater". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 459 (3): 2370–2378.
arXiv:1601.07178.
Bibcode:
2016MNRAS.459.2370T.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw733.
^Torrealba, G.; Koposov, S.E.; Belokurov, V.; Irwin, M.; Collins, M.; Spencer, M.; Ibata, R.; Matteo, M.; Bonaca, A.; Jethwa, P. (2016). "At the survey limits: Discovery of the Aquarius 2 dwarf galaxy in the VST ATLAS and the SDSS data". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 463 (1): 712–722.
arXiv:1605.05338.
Bibcode:
2016MNRAS.463..712T.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw2051.
^
abHomma, Daisuke; Chiba, Masashi; Okamoto, Sakurako; Komiyama, Yutaka; Tanaka, Masayuki; Tanaka, Mikito; Ishigaki, Miho N.; Hayashi, Kohei; Arimoto, Nobuo (2017-04-19). "Searches for New Milky Way Satellites from the First Two Years of Data of the Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey: Discovery of Cetus III". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. 70: S18.
arXiv:1704.05977.
Bibcode:
2018PASJ...70S..18H.
doi:
10.1093/pasj/psx050.
^Martin, Nicolas F.; et al. (Survey of the Magellanic Stellar History) (23 April 2015). "Hydra II: A faint and compact Milky Way dwarf galaxy found in the survey of the Magellanic stellar history". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 804 (1): L5.
arXiv:1503.06216.
Bibcode:
2015ApJ...804L...5M.
doi:
10.1088/2041-8205/804/1/L5.
S2CID7814048.
^Koposov, Sergey E.; Walker, Matthew G.; Belokurov, Vasily; Casey, Andrew R.; Geringer-Sameth, Alex; Mackey, Dougal; Da Costa, Gary; Erkal, Denis; Jethwa, Prashin (2018-10-01). "Snake in the Clouds: a new nearby dwarf galaxy in the Magellanic bridge*". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 479 (4): 5343–5361.
arXiv:1804.06430.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/sty1772.
ISSN0035-8711.
^
abLaevens, B.P.M; Martin, N.F.; Bernard, E.J.; Schlafly, E.F.; Sesar, B. (1 November 2015). "Sagittarius II, Draco II and Laevens 3: Three new Milky Way satellites discovered in the PAN-STARRS 1 3π survey". The Astrophysical Journal. 813 (1): 44.
arXiv:1507.07564.
Bibcode:
2015ApJ...813...44L.
doi:
10.1088/0004-637X/813/1/44.
S2CID54042426.
^Luque, E.; et al. (9 February 2016). "Digging deeper into Southern skies: A compact Milky Way companion discovered in first-year Dark Energy Survey data". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 458 (1): 603–612.
arXiv:1508.02381.
Bibcode:
2016MNRAS.458..603L.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw302.
^
abTorrealba, G.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.; Bechtol, K.; Drlica-Wagner, A.; Olsen, K. A. G.; Vivas, A. K.; Yanny, B.; Jethwa, P. (22 January 2018). "Discovery of two neighbouring satellites in the Carina constellation with MagLiteS". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 475 (4): 5085–5097.
arXiv:1801.07279.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/sty170.
K. Spekkens; N. Urbancic; B. S. Mason; B. Willman; J. E. Aguirre (30 September 2014). "The Dearth of Neutral Hydrogen in Galactic Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 795 (1) (published 13 October 2014): L5.
arXiv:1410.0028.
Bibcode:
2014ApJ...795L...5S.
doi:
10.1088/2041-8205/795/1/L5.
S2CID35113298.