|
Our understanding of dwarf galaxies has evolved from a time—not all that long ago—when these systems were thought of as interesting, but rare and unusual objects of little relevance to larger-scale processes associated with galaxy formation, to the modern picture where dwarf galaxies are now viewed as building blocks of significant components of luminous modern-day galaxies and as windows to the earliest phases of star and galaxy formation and perhaps keys to helping uncover the nature of dark matter. I will provide a very brief survey of this transformation, focusing on some of the key characteristics of dwarf galaxies that have brought them to the forefront of galactic archeological studies along with stellar streams and high-redshift galaxies. I will outline recent results that my collaborators and I have produced and the instrumentation we have developed to carry out these studies. And I will describe where we hope to go in the near future, suggesting some ambitious longer-term goals for dwarf-galaxy studies. |
|