Nov 1 1975
From The Space Library
A newly discovered dwarf galaxy called Snickers, 55 000 light years from the sun, and nearest neighbor to the Milky Way yet found, could lead to more accurate estimates of the size of earth's galaxy. Announcing his find in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Dr. S. Christian Simonson of the U. of Md. said the new galaxy had been hidden from earth view by dense star fields and cosmic dust clouds. Spots of hydrogen gas detected on radioastronomy maps were the clue that led to the discovery, first to be made solely through radiotelescope observations of hydrogen gas. Until now, the Magellanic Clouds-twin galaxies about 205 000 light years away-had been considered the galaxies nearest to the Milky Way. Dr. Simonson's new galaxy had been christened Snickers by his colleagues, who said "it was like the Milky Way, only peanuts." (B Sun, 2 Nov 75, A23)
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