Eight more galaxies found orbiting the Milky Way

The neighborhood around our galaxy is getting a little crowded. Eight more satellite galaxies have been found buzzing around the Milky Way, researchers report online August 16 at arXiv.org.  This brings the number of known Milky Way cohorts to nearly 50, when combined with nine other satellites discovered earlier this year.

Our galactic groupies are pint-sized — the smallest contains just 500 stars — and sit between about 80,000 and 700,000 light-years from Earth. These teeny tagalongs are almost entirely made of dark matter, which makes them excellent laboratories for studying the elusive substance that holds galaxies together.