The SAGA Survey. II. Building a Statistical Sample of Satellite Systems around Milky Way-like Galaxies

Understand

We present the Stage II results from the ongoing Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey.

• Upon completion, the SAGA Survey will spectroscopically identify satellite galaxies brighter than $ M_{r,o} = -12.3 $ around 100 Milky Way (MW) analogs at $ z \sim 0.01 $.
• In Stage II, we have more than quadrupled the sample size of Stage I, delivering results from 127 satellites around 36 MW analogs with an improved target selection strategy and deep photometric imaging catalogs from the Dark Energy Survey and the Legacy Surveys.
• We have obtained 25,372 galaxy redshifts, peaking around $ z = 0.2 $.