Ursa Major II Dwarf
{{Short description|Dwarf galaxy in Ursa Major}}
{{Infobox Galaxy
| name = Ursa Major II Dwarf Galaxy{{cite simbad
|title=NAME UMa II Galaxy
|access-date=2011-11-19}}
| image =
| caption =
| epoch = J2000
| dist_ly = 98 ± 16 kly {{nowrap|(30 ± 5 kpc)}}
| z =
| constellation name = Ursa Major
| names = UMa II galaxy, Ursa Major II Dwarf
}}
Ursa Major II Dwarf (UMa II dSph) is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy situated in the Ursa Major constellation and discovered in 2006 in the data obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxy is located approximately 30 kpc from the Sun and moves towards the Sun with the velocity of about 116 km/s. It has an elliptical (ratio of axes ~ 2:1) shape with the half-light radius of about 140 pc.
Ursa Major II is one of the smallest and faintest satellites{{#tag:ref|Only Coma Berenices, Segue 1, Segue 2, Boötes II and Willman 1 are fainter.|group=note}} of the Milky Way—its integrated luminosity is about 4000 times that of the Sun (absolute visible magnitude of about −4.2), which is much lower than the luminosity of the majority of globular clusters. UMa II is even less luminous than some stars, like Canopus in the Milky Way. It is comparable in luminosity to Bellatrix in Orion. However, its mass is about 5 million solar masses, which means that the galaxy's mass to light ratio is around 2000. This may be an overestimate as the galaxy has a somewhat irregular shape and may be in the process of tidal disruption.
The stellar population of UMa II consists mainly of old stars formed at least 10 billion years ago. The metallicity of these old stars is also very low at {{nowrap|
See also
Notes
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References
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{{Milky Way}}
{{Sky|08|51|30|+|63|07|48|98000}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ursa Major II Dwarf}}