{"id":234785,"date":"2026-04-07T22:26:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/astronomers-discover-andromeda-xxxvi-an-ultra-faint-dwarf-satellite-galaxy"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:26:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:26:41","slug":"astronomers-discover-andromeda-xxxvi-an-ultra-faint-dwarf-satellite-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/astronomers-discover-andromeda-xxxvi-an-ultra-faint-dwarf-satellite-galaxy","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers discover Andromeda XXXVI, an ultra-faint dwarf satellite galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronomers-discover-andromeda-xxxvi-an-ultra-faint-dwarf-satellite-galaxy2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By analyzing the data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PandAS), European astronomers have discovered a new satellite of the Andromeda galaxy. The newfound object, which received the designation Andromeda XXXVI, appears to be an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. The finding is reported in a paper <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2603.28492\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> March 30 on the <i>arXiv<\/i> preprint server.<\/p>\n<p>The so-called ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) are the least luminous, most dark matter-dominated, and least chemically evolved galaxies known. Therefore, they are perceived by astronomers as the best candidate fossils from the universe at its early stages.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a team of astronomers, led by Joanna D. Sakowska of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Spain, reports the finding of a new UFD. Andromeda XXXVI was first spotted and classified as a candidate UFD by <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-02-faint-dwarf-galaxy-donatiello-ii.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">amateur astronomer<\/a> Giuseppe Donatiello during a systematic, visual inspection search of public images from the full PAndAS footprint. Sakowska and her colleagues recently performed follow-up deep imaging of Andromeda XXXVI with the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, which confirmed the UFD nature of this galaxy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By analyzing the data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PandAS), European astronomers have discovered a new satellite of the Andromeda galaxy. The newfound object, which received the designation Andromeda XXXVI, appears to be an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. The finding is reported in a paper published March 30 on the arXiv preprint server. The so-called ultra-faint [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,33,219,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-cosmology","category-physics","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}