An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A → dwarf irregular galaxy that is a remote and rather isolated member of the → Local Group. Also known as DDO 221 and LEDA 143. It is a dim galaxy located in the constellation → Cetus, about three million → light-years from the → Milky Way. Its nearest neighbor, the → dwarf galaxy IC 1613, is one million light-years away. Quite elongated, with a largest extension of more than 8,000 light-years, WLM is about 12 times smaller than the Milky Way, a measurement that includes a → halo of extremely → old stars. WLM has a → metallicity only about one-tenth that of the Milky Way.

See also: Named after astronomer Max Wolf (1863-1932), who discovered the galaxy in 1909, and astronomers Knut Lundmark (1889-1958) and Philibert Jacques Melotte (1880-1961), who identified it as a galaxy some fifteen years later.