The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is a hypothetical galaxy in the Local Group, located in the same part of the sky as the constellation Canis Major.
The galaxy contains a relatively high percentage of red giant stars, and is thought to contain an estimated one billion stars in all.
The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is classified as an irregular galaxy and is now thought to be the closest neighbouring galaxy to our location in the Milky Way, being located about 25,000 light-years away from our Solar System and 42,000 light-years from the Galactic Center. It has a roughly elliptical shape and is thought to contain as many stars as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, the previous contender for closest galaxy to our location in the Milky Way.
Read more about Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy: Discovery, Characteristics, Dispute
Famous quotes containing the words major, dwarf and/or galaxy:
“The man, or the boy, in his development is psychologically deterred from incorporating serving characteristics by an easily observable fact: there are already people around who are clearly meant to serve and they are girls and women. To perform the activities these people are doing is to risk being, and being thought of, and thinking of oneself, as a woman. This has been made a terrifying prospect and has been made to constitute a major threat to masculine identity.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“When I lie down to love,
old dwarf heart shakes her head.
Like an imbecile she was born old.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)