Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 4, 2026

Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal

The Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that was discovered in 1990 by Mike Irwin, Peter Bunclark, Mick Bridgeland and Richard McMahon as the 8th satellite of the Milky Way, located in the constellation of Sextans. It is also an elliptical galaxy, and displays a redshift because it is receding from the Sun at 224 km/s. The distance to the galaxy is 320,000 light-years and the diameter is 8,400 light-years along its major axis.

Last revised
Jul 4, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
324 w
Citations
13
Source
Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
ConstellationSextans
Right ascension10h 13m 02.9s1
Declination−01° 36′ 53″1
Redshift224 ± 2 km/s1
Distance290 ± 30 kly (90 ± 10 kpc)23
Apparent magnitude (V)10.41
Characteristics
TypedSph1
Apparent size (V)30.0 × 12.01
Notable featuressatellite galaxy of the Milky Way
Other designations
Sextans I,1 LEDA 886081

The Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that was discovered in 1990 by Mike Irwin, Peter Bunclark, Mick Bridgeland and Richard McMahon as the 8th satellite of the Milky Way,4 located in the constellation of Sextans. It is also an elliptical galaxy, and displays a redshift 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.5

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 [Fe/H] = −3.2 and −1.4. An analysis of several stars found them to also be deficient in barium, except for one star.6

References

References

  1. "NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database". Results for Sextans Dwarf. Retrieved 2006-11-29.
  2. I. D. Karachentsev; V. E. Karachentseva; W. K. Hutchmeier; D. I. Makarov (2004). "A Catalog of Neighboring Galaxies". Astronomical Journal. 127 (4): 2031–2068. Bibcode:2004AJ....127.2031K. doi:10.1086/382905.
  3. Karachentsev, I. D.; Kashibadze, O. G. (2006). "Masses of the local group and of the M81 group estimated from distortions in the local velocity field". Astrophysics. 49 (1): 3–18. Bibcode:2006Ap.....49....3K. doi:10.1007/s10511-006-0002-6. S2CID 120973010.
  4. M. J. Irwin; P. S. Bunclark; M. T. Bridgeland; R. G. McMahon (1990). "A new satellite galaxy of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sextans". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 244: 16–19. Bibcode:1990MNRAS.244P..16I.
  5. Hartmut Frommert. "Sextans Dwarf". SEDS. Retrieved 2015-03-21.
  6. Mashonkina, L.; Pakhomov, Yu V.; Sitnova, T.; Jablonka, P.; Yakovleva, S. A.; Belyaev, A. K. (2022). "The formation of the Milky Way halo and its dwarf satellites: A NLTE–1D abundance analysis. V. The Sextans galaxy". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 509 (3): 3626–3642. arXiv:2110.09402. doi:10.1093/mnras/stab3189.