[3] It was finally confirmed as a dwarf galaxy in 1997 by Alan Whiting, Mike Irwin and George Hau during a survey of the northern sky.

[8] The same year, Antonio Aparicio, Julianne Dalcanton, Carme Gallart and David Martinez-Delgado studied for the first time its stellar content and measured its mass, luminosity and metallicity.

[2][10] The galaxy has a well-defined and easily observed red giant branch, which makes measuring its distance relatively easy.

[9] The total luminosity of Antlia Dwarf is approximately 1 million times that of the Sun (the visible absolute magnitude is MV=−10.3).

[3][8] However their velocity relative to each other—43 km/s[3] makes it questionable whether they are in fact a bound system, especially if the distance between them is closer to the upper limit—180 kpc.

[4] Observations have also demonstrated that NGC 3109 has a warp in its gaseous disk that is traveling at the same velocity as the gas in the Antlia Dwarf, indicating that the two galaxies had a close encounter about one billion years ago.