The Carina Dwarf is a faint spheroidal galaxy orbiting the Milky Way, notable for having formed its stars in separate bursts with long quiet spells between them.
At a glance
| type | galaxy |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 326,000 light-years (100 kpc) |
| its light left it | 326,000 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 2,300 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Carina Dwarf
The Carina Dwarf is a small satellite galaxy in the southern constellation Carina, found on survey plates from the UK Schmidt Telescope. It is one of the faintest of the classical dwarf spheroidals, a diffuse cloud of stars with no gas left, dominated like the others by dark matter.
Its colour–magnitude diagram, the plot of brightness against colour for its stars, shows something rare: distinct populations of different ages, separated by gaps. Carina formed stars in a few discrete episodes, with long pauses between them, rather than in one early burst or continuously. Why star formation switched off and on again is not settled, and the Milky Way’s tides, which seem to be stretching its outskirts, may play a part.
What you see in the piece
In the piece it is a sparse swarm of warm-coloured stars far below the disc, far beyond the eye’s reach from the Sun and diffuse even up close.
Measured or modelled
The cause of its episodic star formation, and how strongly the Milky Way’s tides are stripping it, remain open questions.
Questions
What is unusual about the Carina Dwarf galaxy?
It formed its stars in distinct bursts separated by long pauses, which shows up as separate stellar populations of different ages.
How far away is the Carina Dwarf?
The Carina Dwarf is 326,000 light-years (100 kpc) from the Sun.