Dwarf galaxies are the most common galaxy type in the Universe. They come in a few different flavors. The ones in the dense Coma cluster of galaxies are inert (i.e., non-star-forming) and belong to a class of galaxies known as “dwarf ellipticals” (dEs). The physical origin of this class of galaxies remains poorly understood. The students will analyze brand new spectroscopic data on Coma dEs obtained with the DEIMOS spectrograph on the Keck II 10-meter telescope (in April this year!). They will also have access to somewhat older imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mentor: Raja GuhaThakurta, Professor
Secondary Mentor: Dr. Elisa Toloba