A Student Finds Three Galaxies and Possibly Solves a Mystery

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A composite image of three possible "backsplash" dwarf galaxies,  created by Julian Shapiro using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Hyper Suprime-Cam Legacy Archive / National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / Coelum.

It's not too often that a high school student-turned undergraduate gets three galaxies named after him, especially ones that are breaking the rules of star formation. Julian Shapiro, an astrophysics student at the University of California, Berkeley, found strange dwarf galaxies in the vicinity of the large spiral M101 while doing research into their star formation rates as a high school student. They're now known as Shapiro I, II, and III. In the process, he's become an inspiration to other students who might be interested in astrophysical research.

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