THE OBSERVED PROPERTIES OF DWARF GALAXIES IN AND AROUND THE LOCAL GROUP
Open accessAbstract
Positional, structural, and dynamical parameters for all dwarf galaxies in and around the Local Group are presented, and various aspects of our observational understanding of this volume-limited sample are discussed. Over 100 nearby galaxies that have distance estimates reliably placing them within 3 Mpc of the Sun are identified. This distance threshold samples dwarfs in a large range of environments, from the satellite systems of the MW and M31, to the quasi-isolated dwarfs in the outer regions of the Local Group, to the numerous isolated galaxies that are found in its surroundings. It extends to, but does not include, the galaxies associated with the next nearest groups, such as Maffei, Sculptor, and IC 342. Our basic knowledge of this important galactic subset and their resolved stellar populations will continue to improve dramatically over the coming years with existing and future observational capabilities, and they will continue to provide the most detailed information available on numerous aspects of dwarf galaxy formation and evolution. Basic observational parameters, such as distances, velocities, magnitudes, mean metallicities, as well as structural and dynamical characteristics, are collated, homogenized (as far as possible), and presented in tables that will be continually updated to provide a convenient and current online resource. As well as discussing the provenance of the tabulated values and possible uncertainties affecting their usage, the membership and spatial extent of the MW sub-group, M31 sub-group, and the Local Group are explored. The morphological diversity of the entire sample and notable sub-groups is discussed, and timescales are derived for the Local Group members in the context of their orbital/interaction histories. The scaling relations and mean stellar metallicity trends defined by the dwarfs are presented, and the origin of a possible "floor" in central surface brightness (and, more speculatively, stellar mean metallicity) at faint magnitudes is considered.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The largest feature distinguishing the southern half of the disk is the presence of M32, just 5 kpc from the center of the M31 disk in projection.
“The largest, and arguably the most interesting, feature distinguishing the southern half of the disk is the presence of M32, just 5 kpc from the center of the M31 disk in projection”
From The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST). II. The Spatially Resolved Recent Star Formation History in M31 (2026) · cites this paper as McConnachie 2012
Cited by
Sorted by citations
<i>Gaia</i> Data Release 2: Catalogue validation
Arenou, F., Luri, X., Babusiaux, C., Fabricius, C., Helmi, A., Muraveva, T., Robin, A. C., Spoto, F., Vallenari, A., Antoja, T., et al. (2018) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833234 · Cited by 601 · see citing works
<i>Gaia</i> Data Release 3: Properties and validation of the radial velocities
Katz, D., Sartoretti, P., Guerrier, A., Panuzzo, P., Seabroke, G. M., Thévenin, F., Cropper, M., Benson, K., Blomme, R., Haigron, R., et al. (2023) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202244220 · Cited by 351 · see citing works
Pfeffer, J., Kruijssen, J. M. D., Crain, R. A., & Bastian, N. (2018) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stx3124 · Cited by 243 · see citing works
The apostle project: Local Group kinematic mass constraints and simulation candidate selection
Fattahi, A., Navarro, J. F., Sawala, T., Frenk, C. S., Oman, K. A., Crain, R. A., Furlong, M., Schaller, M., Schaye, J., Theuns, T., et al. (2016) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2970 · Cited by 214 · see citing works
Illuminating Low Surface Brightness Galaxies with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
Greco, J. P., Greene, J. E., Strauss, M. A., Macarthur, L. A., Flowers, X., Goulding, A. D., Huang, S., Kim, J. H., Komiyama, Y., Leauthaud, A., et al. (2018) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aab842 · Cited by 193 · see citing works
Reverse engineering the Milky Way
Forbes, D. A. (2020) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/staa245 · Cited by 168 · see citing works
The mass of the Milky Way from satellite dynamics
Callingham, T. M., Cautun, M., Deason, A. J., Frenk, C. S., Wang, W., Gómez, F. A., Grand, R. J. J., Marinacci, F., & Pakmor, R. (2019) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stz365 · Cited by 166 · see citing works
Deason, A. J., Mao, Y.-Y., & Wechsler, R. H. (2016) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/0004-637x/821/1/5 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
All-sky dynamical response of the galactic halo to the large magellanic cloud
Conroy, C., Naidu, R. P., Garavito-Camargo, N., Besla, G., Zaritsky, D., Bonaca, A., & Johnson, B. D. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03385-7 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
Koposov, S. E., Erkal, D., Li, T. S., Da Costa, G. S., Cullinane, L. R., Ji, A. P., Kuehn, K., Lewis, G. F., Pace, A. B., Shipp, N., et al. (2023) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stad551 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
The Copernicus Complexio: a high-resolution view of the small-scale Universe
Hellwing, W. A., Frenk, C. S., Cautun, M., Bose, S., Helly, J., Jenkins, A., Sawala, T., & Cytowski, M. (2016) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw214 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
The orbital ellipticity of satellite galaxies and the mass of the Milky Way
Barber, C., Starkenburg, E., Navarro, J. F., McConnachie, A. W., & Fattahi, A. (2014) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stt1959 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Self-citationAlignments between galaxies, satellite systems and haloes
Shao, S., Cautun, M., Frenk, C. S., Gao, L., Crain, R. A., Schaller, M., Schaye, J., & Theuns, T. (2016) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1247 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Wainer, T. M., Williams, B. F., Chen, Z., Lazzarini, M., Dalcanton, J. J., Bell, E. F., Goold, K., Dolphin, A., Durbin, M. J., Dubón, S. L. F., et al. (2026) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae6db9
“The largest, and arguably the most interesting, feature distinguishing the southern half of the disk is the presence of M32, just 5 kpc from the center of the M31 disk in projection, although with unknown distance to the disk itself (e.g., McConnachie 2012).”
- Authors
- McConnachie, A. W.
- Affiliations
- Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (CA)
- Corresponding author
- McConnachie, Alan W.
- ORCID
- McConnachie, Alan W.
- Venue
- The Astronomical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2012-06-05
- Volume
- 144
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 4
- ISSN
- 0004-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1538-3881
- OpenAlex
- W2122904079
- Cited by
- 1,869
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 91 · 2025: 124 · 2024: 141 · 2023: 145 · 2022: 131 · 2021: 134 · 2020: 136 · 2019: 167 · 2018: 169 · 2017: 147 · 2016: 162 · 2015: 147 · 2014: 109 · 2013: 54 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 56.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- The Astronomical Journal (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- NPARC (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Keywords
- dwarf galaxies, Local Group, stellar metallicity, galaxy morphology, galaxy kinematics, satellite galaxies, central surface brightness, scaling laws, volume-limited sample
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
