Like many of the ultrafaint dwarf spheroidals, the entire galaxy appears fainter than the Rigel system (absolute magnitude –7.84).[4] Even so, it is one of the more luminous UFDs.[5] It is metal-poor, like other UFDs, with a mean metallicity of −2.34.[5]
The stellar population of Boötes I is mostly very old stars. The two populations have essentially the same age, 13.4 billion and 13.3 billion years, respectively, with most of the stars being of the latter population.[6]
^Longeard, Nicolas; Jablonka, Pascale; Arentsen, Anke; Thomas, Guillaume F.; Aguado, David S.; Carlberg, Raymond G.; Lucchesi, Romain; Malhan, Khyati; Martin, Nicolas; McConnachie, Alan W.; Navarro, Julio F.; Sánchez-Janssen, Rubén; Sestito, Federico; Starkenburg, Else; Yuan, Zhen (2022). "The Pristine dwarf galaxy survey – IV. Probing the outskirts of the dwarf galaxy Boötes I". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 516 (2): 2348–2362. arXiv:2107.10849. Bibcode:2022MNRAS.516.2348L. doi:10.1093/mnras/stac1827.
^Shultz, M.; Wade, G. A.; Petit, V.; Grunhut, J.; Neiner, C.; Hanes, D.; MiMeS Collaboration (2014). "An observational evaluation of magnetic confinement in the winds of BA supergiants". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 438 (2): 1114. arXiv:1311.5116. Bibcode:2014MNRAS.438.1114S. doi:10.1093/mnras/stt2260.