Dwarf Galaxies Discovered 42
d'alz writes "Two new satellite galaxies have been discovered in the Milky Way. These dim dwarf galaxies bring the total number of galaxies in the Milky Way's cosmic neighborhood to a total of 14. Of course, theorists believe there could be a hundred more.
The two dwarfs were found in the direction of the constellations Canes Venatici (the hunting dogs) and Bootes (the herdsman), scientists studying the Sloan Digital Sky Survey said in a statement. However, even though these galaxies are presumably quite close, they are difficult to spot, as they are very dim, which is a defining characteristic of dwarf galaxies."
Re:Basic question on naming... (Score:2, Informative)
Really, the only place you could contest whether something was a galaxy or not would be multiple star systems on the small side and whether or not two galaxies are actually separate on the large side. Really though, multiple star systems move together, so that's not really a question, and most of the stars in a galaxy tend to orbit in the same general direction and in the same plane. If a large grouping of stars moved together in a way that's very eccentric to our galactic plane, even if it orbits our galactic center, then it's likely a minigalaxy.