Ricardo O. Amorín
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia - CSIC

Abstract
I will report on recent results from an ongoing large-scale study of emission-line galaxies at redshift 0.15-0.35, recently discovered by the "Galaxy Zoo" team. These galaxies, popularly referred to as "Green Peas", are luminous, extremely compact objects with vigorously high specific star formation rates.
Their properties, seem to be uncommon in the nearby Universe, suggesting a short and extreme stage of their evolution. We have investigated their chemical abundances and compare them with local star-forming galaxies with respect to various fundamental galaxy relations, such as the mass-metallicity relation.
Remarkably, we have found that these systems are genuinely metal-poor galaxies, with oxygen abundances of one fifth solar on average.
Recent observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) will provide us important additional clues about their star formation history and chemical abundances. Here I will present an overview of these preliminary results.

2011 May 10, 13:30

IA/U.Porto
Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (Auditorium)
Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto