Fornax

noun

astronomy

: a southern constellation that is visible between the constellations of Eridanus and Sculptor and that is represented by the figure of a laboratory furnace

The Sextans object is an example of a dwarf galaxy, a class of small, low-mass galaxies only a few thousand light-years in diameter. Harlow Shapley discovered the first examples of dwarf satellite galaxies in 1938, one in the constellation Sculptor and one in Fornax.

—Astronomy, July 1990

Word History

First Known Use

1820, in the meaning defined above

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