We discuss the serendipitous discovery of an extremely metal poor galaxy , SDSS 0809+1729 , classified as a star in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ( SDSS ) .
The galaxy has a redshift z = 0.0441 and a B -band absolute magnitude M _ { B } = -17.1 .
With a metallicity of \log ( { O / H } ) +12 \sim 7.44 or \sim 1 / 20 solar , this galaxy is among the 10 most metal poor emission-line galaxies known .
SDSS 0809+1729 is a blue compact galaxy ( BCG ) with a stellar age of \sim 4.5 Myr , a star formation rate of 0.18 { M } _ { \odot } yr ^ { -1 } , and a large gas-phase electron density ( \sim 367 cm ^ { -3 } ) .
Similar values of these parameters are common among other extremely metal poor galaxies , including I Zw 18 .
SDSS 0809+1729 is , however , unusual among BCGs because it lies in the same region of the luminosity-metallicity diagram as the two lowest metallicity long duration gamma ray burst ( GRB ) hosts .
For a given B -band luminosity , both nearby GRB hosts and SDSS 0809+1729 have systematically lower metallicities than dwarf irregulars , the majority of BCGs , and normal star-forming galaxies .
Because the star formation properties of SDSS 0809+1729 are similar to nearby long duration GRB hosts , SDSS 0809+1729 may be a potential GRB host .
Identification of larger samples of similar extremely metal poor objects may provide important insights into the conditions required to produce long duration GRBs .