Ursa Major Dwarf is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. The discovery by Beth Willman et al. was announced in 2005. Dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) is a term in astronomy applied to the nine low luminosity dwarf elliptical galaxies that are companions to the Milky Way and to the similar systems that are companions to the Andromeda Galaxy M31. ... The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Galaxia Kuklos) is the galaxy in which the Earth is found. ... This article is about a celestial body. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Being a small dwarf galaxy, it measures only a few thousand light years in diameter. It is the least luminous galaxy known after the recently found dark galaxy VIRGOHI21 in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. The absolute magnitude of the galaxy is only -6.75, meaning that it is less luminous than some stars, like Deneb in the Milky Way. It was described to be similar to the Sextans dwarf galaxy. Both galaxies are ancient and metal-deficient. A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of up to several billion stars, a small number compared to our own Milky Ways 200-400 billion stars. ... A light year, abbreviated ly, is the distance light travels in one year: roughly 9. ... VIRGOHI21 is a dark matter halo in the Virgo cluster. ... A sky field near some of the brighter galaxies in the Virgo cluster. ... In astronomy, absolute magnitude is the apparent magnitude, m, an object would have if it were at a standardized distance away. ... The Pleiades star cluster A star is any massive gaseous body in outer space just like the Sun. ... Cygnus, the constellation in which Deneb is located. ...

It is located at a distance of about 330,000 light years from the Earth. That is about twice the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud, the largest and most luminous satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. A light year, abbreviated ly, is the distance light travels in one year: roughly 9. ... The Large Magellanic Cloud (also known as LMC) is a dwarf galaxy that is in orbit around our own Milky Way galaxy. ...

There were another object called Ursa Major Dwarf, discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1949. It was designated as Palomar 4. Due to its peculiar look, it was temporary suspected to be either a dwarf spheroidal or elliptical galaxy. However, it was later confirmed to be a very distant (about 360,000 ly) globular cluster belonging to our galaxy. Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was a noted American astronomer, generally credited for discovering1 the redshift of galaxies and that the universe is expanding. ... 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... Dwarf elliptical are very small elliptical galaxies, classified as dE. They are quite common, and usually are companions to other galaxies. ... A globular cluster is a spherical bundle of stars (star cluster) that orbits a galaxy as a satellite. ...

Sources

• Croswell, Ken: "The Milky Way's newest satellite (http://astronomy.com/default.aspx?c=a&id=3013)", Astronomy.com, (16 April 2005)
• "Ursa Major Dwarf, Palomar 4 (http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/MWGC/pal04.html)." Milky Way Globular Clusters. Accessed on April 16, 2005.
• Willman, Dalcanton, Martinez-Delgado, et al. (2005) "A New Milky Way Dwarf Galaxy in Ursa Major", submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters, on arXiv.org: astro-ph/0503552 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503552)