SMALL galaxies are more complex than we thought.
Galaxies are thought to beef up in size and complexity through mergers with small clumps of stars, such as dwarf irregular galaxies (DIG), which lack a distinct shape or boundary. But when Vladas Vansevicius of the Institute of Physics in Vilnius, Lithuania, and colleagues studied a nearby DIG called Leo A, they found a complexity that belies its size. A mere 0.01 per cent of the mass of the Milky Way, it showed no sign of previous mergers.
The team studied 1394 red giant branch stars, which are very old and bright,…
