Collaborative Project: The Properties of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

这个项目是由一群杰出的年轻观测天文学家发起的，旨在了解极微弱星系的性质。这些天体在数量上主宰着宇宙，尽管人们对它们对总质量的贡献知之甚少。事实上，我们对外部星系中恒星形成的大部分知识，以及对星系一般性质的了解，都来自于对可能不典型的系统的研究。这些工作人员将通过光学和无线电手段探索这些数量多得多的天体的特性。这些研究人员的初步工作已经导致发现了两个已知的最大、最富气体的螺旋星系，这两个星系的表面亮度都很低。

This project, by a group of outstanding young observational astronomers, aims at an understanding of the properties of ex- tremely faint galaxies. These objects dominate the universe in terms of numbers, although their contribution to the total mass is poorly known. Indeed, most of our knowledge of star formation in external galaxies, and of galaxy properties in general has come from studies of systems which may not be typical. These workers will explore the properties of these much more numerous objects by both optical and radio means. Preliminary work by these investigators has already resulted in the discovery of the two largest, most gas-rich spiral galaxies known, both systems of very low surface brightness.