SDSS 0809+1729: Connections Between Extremely Metal Poor Galaxies and Gamma Ray Burst Hosts

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)+12~7.44 or ~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 ~4.5 Myr, a star formation rate of 0.18 Msun/yr, and a large gas-phase electron density ~367/cm^3. Similar values of these parameters are common among other extremely metal poor galaxies, including IZw18. 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.