Probably like many people here, I was an ardent watcher of Stargate SG-1 when it was running. At times it tried to dabble in hard sci-fi, but mostly it was a light affair with plenty of comedy.

One thing that bothered me was when the characters would throw out galaxy names. Case in point, the “Pegasus” galaxy which became the premise setting for the spin-off Stargate Atlantis. I’d watch the show and go “no such thing is known”, and wonder why the writers didn’t use the name of one of the many known dwarf galaxies near our own galaxy.

Well, today I’m watching a presentation on Large Magellanic Cloud modeling as a test of dark matter, and the presenter throws up this map of the latest compilation of known small galaxies around the Milky Way:

And lo and behold.. there is “Peg3” in the middle. So when did that appear?

Turns out in 2015 (after Stargate had its TV run) the discovery was announced: A Hero’s Dark Horse: Discovery of an Ultra-Faint Milky Way Satellite in Pegasus

Peg3 should not be confused with the “Pegasus Dwarf Galaxy” which is a companion of M31, the great galaxy in Andromeda.

When Stargate first mentioned “Pegasus galaxy” they could not have referred to the Andromeda companion as that would be too far away. So the writers were just making things up.

Turns out, the writers can now ret-con in Peg3 should Stargate ever be rebooted.

(It should be noted that Pegasus as a constellation covers a large section of the sky, so there are a great many galaxies in the direction of Pegasus, but they are all far, far away and the Stargate “Pegasus” galaxy was supposed to be close to the Milky Way, close enough to reach it with the show’s premised inventions.)