Antlia II (Ant II) is a
low-surface-brightnessdwarfsatellitegalaxy of the
Milky Way at a
galactic latitude of 11.2°. It spans 1.26° in the sky just southeast of
Epsilon Antliae. The galaxy is similar in size to the
Large Magellanic Cloud, despite being 1/10,000 as bright. Antlia II has the lowest surface brightness of any galaxy discovered[4] and is ~ 100 times more diffuse than any known
ultra diffuse galaxy.[1] The large size of the galaxy suggests that it is currently being tidally disrupted, and is in the process of becoming a
stellar stream.[3] The southeast side of Antlia II is farther away than the northwest side, likely due to the tidal disruption.[2] It was discovered using data from the
European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft in November 2018.
^
abcTorrealba, G.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.; Li, T. S.; Walker, M. G.; Sanders, J. L.; Geringer-Sameth, A.; Zucker, D. B.; Kuehn, K.; Evans, N. W.; Dehnen, W. (2019). "The hidden giant: Discovery of an enormous Galactic dwarf satellite in Gaia DR2". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 488 (2): 2743–2766.
arXiv:1811.04082.
Bibcode:
2019MNRAS.488.2743T.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stz1624.
S2CID118867213.
^
abVivas, A. Katherina; Martínez-Vázquez, Clara E.; Walker, Alistair R.; Belokurov, Vasily; Li, Ting S.; Erkal, Denis (2022). "Variable Stars in the Giant Satellite Galaxy Antlia 2". The Astrophysical Journal. 926 (1): 78.
Bibcode:
2022ApJ...926...78V.
doi:
10.3847/1538-4357/ac43bd.
S2CID245219267.
^
abcJi, Alexander P.; Koposov, Sergey E.; Li, Ting S.; Erkal, Denis; Pace, Andrew B.; Simon, Joshua D.; Belokurov, Vasily; Cullinane, Lara R.; Da Costa, Gary S.; Kuehn, Kyler; Lewis, Geraint F.; MacKey, Dougal; Shipp, Nora; Simpson, Jeffrey D.; Zucker, Daniel B.; Hansen, Terese T.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; S5 Collaboration (2021). "Kinematics of Antlia 2 and Crater 2 from the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S 5)". The Astrophysical Journal. 921 (1): 32.
arXiv:2106.12656.
Bibcode:
2021ApJ...921...32J.
doi:
10.3847/1538-4357/ac1869.
S2CID235624056.
