Glossary term: Dwarf Galaxy
Description: A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy that is unusually faint either because of its very small size, or its very low surface brightness, or both. Typically, dwarf galaxies are at most as luminous as a billion times the solar luminosity, corresponding to less than one percent of the luminosity of our own home galaxy, the Milky Way. There are numerous different types of dwarf galaxy including dwarf ellipticals, dwarf spheroidals, dwarf spirals, and dwarf irregular galaxies. One of the most important examples of dwarf galaxies is the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is a dwarf irregular satellite of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
