Snake in the clouds—astronomers discover a new dwarf galaxy in the Magellanic Bridge

An international group of astronomers reports the detection of a new dwarf galaxy in the so-called Magellanic Bridge – a stream of gas linking the two Magellanic Clouds. The newly found galaxy, designated Hydrus 1, is described in a paper published April 17 on the arXiv pre-print server.

The new galaxy was found in the Hydrus constellation. It is a small a small constellation in the deep southern sky. Its name means a "male water snake." Therefore, the astronomers refer to the newly discovered galaxy as a "snake in the clouds."

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Credit: Koposov et al. 2018.

The density of main sequence turn-off in the Magellanic Clouds region. The location of newly discovered dwarf galaxy in between Large Magellanic Cloud (on the left) and Small Magellanic Cloud (on the right) is marked by a red dashed circle.

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Tiny dwarfs aside, the nearest galaxies to our own are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Between them is a stream of hydrogen known as the Magellanic Bridge.