Astronomers at Yale University have discovered seven dwarf galaxies, using a “homemade” telescope made by stitching together telephoto lenses. The previously overlooked galaxies may yield important insights into dark matter and galaxy evolution, while possibly signaling the discovery of a new class of objects in space.
The discovery came quickly, in a relatively small section of sky. “We got an exciting result in our first images,” said Allison Merritt, a Yale graduate student and lead author of a paper about the discovery in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. “It was very exciting. It speaks to the quality of the telescope.”
Pieter van Dokkum, chair of Yale’s astronomy department, designed the robotic telescope with University of Toronto astronomer Roberto Abraham. Their Dragonfly Telephoto Array uses eight telephoto lenses with special coatings that suppress internally scattered light.
“These are the same kind of lenses that are used in sporting events like the World Cup. We decided to point them upward instead,” van Dokkum said.
“It’s a new domain. We’re exploring a region of parameter space that had not been explored before,” van Dokkum said. In addition to discovering new galaxies, the team is looking for debris from long-ago galaxy collisions.
