[HN Gopher] Andromeda XXXV: The Faintest Dwarf Satellite of the ...
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       Andromeda XXXV: The Faintest Dwarf Satellite of the Andromeda
       Galaxy
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2025-03-20 05:46 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (iopscience.iop.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (iopscience.iop.org)
        
       | merek wrote:
       | This could have been an interesting article, but I couldn't get
       | past the ridiculous captcha
        
         | d_silin wrote:
         | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adb433/...
        
         | 0hijinks wrote:
         | Here's an ArXiv version: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.19516
        
       | sega_sai wrote:
       | I am not sure that it is that remarkable (for this website),
       | given the _known_ faintest Milky Way 's satellites are ~ 100
       | times fainter, and there probably ten-ish galaxies fainter than
       | And XXXV around the MW.
        
         | s1artibartfast wrote:
         | What is the threshold for remark? I certainly wasn't aware
         | there was a contest where only the faintest could be submitted?
        
           | sega_sai wrote:
           | I am not a policeman of what could be submitted, but some
           | results are remarkable enough/interesting enough because they
           | are record breakers or unusual in one way or another. This is
           | run of the mill galaxy in Andromeda. And because Andromeda is
           | quite far away the faintest galaxies we can detect there are
           | in fact much brighter than what we can detect around the MW.
        
             | s1artibartfast wrote:
             | I guess I'm fundamentally pushing back on the idea that it
             | has to be at the extreme end of a phenomenon to be
             | interesting. I think the phenomenon of tiny satellite
             | galaxies is interesting, full stop. far more remarkable
             | than something being the smallest. Any distribution will
             | have a smallest element, it follows from the distribution
             | existing at all. Similarly, if satellite in orbit of
             | Andromeda I don't see the value of bringing whataboutism
             | into it.
        
         | dredmorbius wrote:
         | 1st 'graph of the related paper explains the significance:
         | 
         |  _Ultrafaint dwarf galaxies are critical probes of the
         | properties of dark matter and the physical drivers of galaxy
         | formation at very low mass scales. In the roughly two decades
         | since their first discovery, tens of ultrafaint satellite
         | galaxies of the Milky Way have been discovered. As individual
         | systems, they are extremely dark matter dominated and most
         | appear to have primarily early star formation that is impacted
         | strongly by reionization._
         | 
         | <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adb433/..
         | .>
         | 
         | To be fair, this is the _paper_ on which the article is
         | presumably based rather than TFA itself, though I (as
         | apparently others) was unable to read the linked source due to
         | the indeed ridiculously stringent CAPTCHA.
         | 
         | Obvious reasons why faint dwarf galaxies proximate to our own
         | home galaxy might be more observable than even those of our
         | nearest (large) galactic neighbour are obvious, and are a
         | trivial tangent not worth elaboration.
        
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