Even a dwarf galaxy with very low mass is capable of accreting smaller nearby galaxies, according to an international team of astronomers led by Francesca Annibali of INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. This result has been achieved thanks to observations of the region surrounding the dwarf galaxy DDO 68, which has a total stellar mass of only 100 million solar masses, roughly one thousandth of our Milky Way.
In the new study, Annibali and collaborators took advantage of the sensitivity and the large field of view of the LBT. The team discovered that DDO 68, a dwarf galaxy located in an isolated region of space defined as a "void," is actually surrounded by a number of smaller satellite galaxies, and is accreting them.
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