Local Group - History

History

The term "The Local Group" was introduced by Edwin Hubble in Chapter VI of his book The Realm of the Nebulae (Hubble 1936, pp. 124–151). There he describes it as "a typical small group of nebulae which is isolated in the general field." In that book he delineated by decreasing luminosity its members to be M31, the Milky Way, M33, the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, M32, NGC 205, NGC 6822, NGC 185, IC 1613 and NGC 147. He also identified IC 10 as a possible Local Group member. By 2003, the number of known Local Group members has increased from his initial twelve to thirty-six, by way of the discovery of almost two dozen low-luminosity galaxies.

Read more about this topic:  Local Group

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)