The Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that was discovered in 1990 by

Mike Irwin Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and document ...

as the 8th satellite of the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

, located in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

of Sextans. It is also an elliptical galaxy, and displays a

redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in f ...

because it is receding from the Sun at 224 km/s (72 km/s from the Galaxy). The distance to the galaxy is 320,000 light-years and the diameter is 8,400 light-years along its major axis. Like other dwarf spheroidal galaxies, the Sextans Dwarf's population consists of old, metal-poor stars: one study found that the majority of stars have a metallicity between e/H= −3.2 and −1.4. An analysis of several stars found them to also be deficient in

barium Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. Th ...

, except for one star.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Galaxy, Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal Dwarf spheroidal galaxies Local Group Milky Way Subgroup Sextans (constellation) ?