John Paul M. Joaquin Science 07.02.2022 01:Jul AM EDT

A Fossil Galaxy Has Been Discovered Near Andromeda

An amateur astronomer has done something that could earn the envy of his fellows.

Giuseppe Donatiello, a skywatcher, was recently reported by Space.com to have found a fossil galaxy that could help experts understand what galaxies looked like in space's earliest days.

Experts who followed up on Donatiello's findings gave the fossil galaxy the name Pegasus V.

Pegasus V Discovery Facts

Pegasus V was discovered against all odds by Donatiello when he spotted found the fossil galaxy by chance by pointing out a "smudge" in data in an image from a Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys image, per NOIRLab.

Experts who heard about Donatiello's observations then studied the region using Gemini North, a telescope located in Hawaii. to confirm it and found the dwarf galaxy found by the skywatcher.

Michelle Collins, an astronomer from the University of Surrey in the UK who led the follow-up research on Donatiello's observations, calls the discovery the first time such a galaxy was discovered using an astronomical survey that wasn't specifically designed for the task. She also added that Pegasus V's stars formed very early in the history of the Universe.

Collins' statement was issued by the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), which operates Gemini North.

The follow-up observations by Collins and those at NOIRLab revealed faint stars in Pegasus V, confirming that it is an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy on the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy.

Collins and those at NOIRLab found Pegasus V to have an extreme deficiency in heavier elements compared to similar dwarf galaxies, making it very old and likely to be a fossil of the first galaxies in the Universe, per Science Daily.

However, the DESI isn't the first instrument that found the dwarf galaxy - data gathered by the Victor M. Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile holds that honor.

The skywatcher was reportedly taking part in a search for Andromeda dwarf galaxies conducted by David Martinez-Delgado of the Instituto de Astroficisa de Andalucia, Spain when he spotted Pegasus V.

What Is A Fossil Galaxy?

Fossil Galaxies or Fossil groups are galaxies that consist of a large, isolated elliptical galaxy inside an extended halo of X-ray emitting gas the size of a galaxy group, per the Swinburne University of Technology.

Although finding one is difficult to say the least, Liverpool John Moores University's Ricardo Schiavon says that astronomers have to look at the detailed chemical make-up and motions of tens of thousands of stars, which they did when they discovered the Heracles fossil galaxy inside the Milky Way.

These fossil galaxies are said to be glimpses of what the Universe was in its earliest days.

Collins hopes that further study of Pegasus V and other similar fossil galaxies' chemical properties will provide clues into the earliest periods of star formation in the Universe, per Sci Tech Daily. Fossil galaxies can also help astronomers understand how galaxies form and whether humanity's current understanding of dark matter is correct.