An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A → dwarf spheroidal galaxy belonging to the → Local Group that was discovered serendipitously in 2019. Bedin I was detected using extremely deep → HST images (V ~ 30 mag) obtained for the purpose of investigating the → white dwarf cooling track of the Galactic → globular cluster NGC 6752.

Bedin I is too faint and too close to the core of NGC 6752 for detection in earlier surveys. The discovery paper derives a → distance modulus of (m - M)₀ = 29.70 ± 0.13 mag from the observed → red giant branch, i.e. ~ 8.7 → megaparsecs (~ 30 million → light-years), and a size of ~ 840 × 340 pc, about one-fifth the size of the → Large Magellanic Cloud. This object is most likely a relatively isolated → satellite galaxy of the nearby great → spiral galaxy NGC 6744. The study suggests the presence of an old (~ 13 Gyr) and → metal-poor ([Fe/H] ~ -1.3) population in Bedin I.

See also: Named after the first author of the discovery paper, L. R. Bedin et al., 2019, MNRAS 484, L54.