Research Note Is SBS 0335-052 a young galaxy?

The metal-poor blue compact galaxy SBS 0335-052 has been put forward as a local primeval galaxy candidate, with a proposed age less than 10 8 years. If true, this would imply that galaxy formation was not confined to high red-shifts, but is still occurring in the local Universe, albeit at a slower rate. In this paper we show that some of the available data in the literature on SBS 0335-052 indicate an age significantly greater than 10 8 years. In view of this, the conclusion that SBS 0335-052 is a newly formed galaxy appears premature. We point out that single burst models in general give lower limits on age estimates, which should be borne in mind when assessing ages for distant galaxies.

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