A team of astronomers from New York University led by Beth Willman has discovered the Milky Way’s 13th satellite galaxy located in the direction of Ursa Major, (the Big Bear). It’s located about 6 degrees southwest of the cup of the Big Dipper.

The Ursa Major Galaxy is a dwarf galaxy, only 1,600 light-years wide. It has the lowest luminosity of any galaxy ever detected, with only 40,000 suns. It’s about 350,000 light years away. The tens of thousands of stars appear spread out and practically lost amid the Milky Way’s foreground stars. The stars contain only a few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, indicating its age to be as old as 13 billion years.