GALEX Discovery of a Damped Ly-alpha System at Redshift z = 1
  We report the first discovery of a QSO damped Ly-alpha (DLA) system by the
GALEX satellite. The system was initially identified as an MgII absorption-line
system (z_abs=1.028) in the spectrum of SDSS QSO J0203-0910 (z_em=1.58). The
presence of unusually strong absorption due to metal lines of ZnII, CrII, MnII,
and FeII clearly suggested that it might be a DLA system with N{HI} > 2 x 10^20
atoms cm^-2. Follow-up GALEX NUV grism spectroscopy confirms the system
exhibits a DLA absorption line, with a measured HI column density of N{HI} =
1.50+/-0.45 x 10^21 atoms cm^-2. By combining the GALEX N{HI} determination
with the SDSS spectrum measurements of unsaturated metal-line absorption due to
ZnII, which is generally not depleted onto grains, we find that the system's
neutral-gas-phase metal abundance is [Zn/H] = -0.69+/-0.22, or ~20% solar. By
way of comparison, although this system has one of the largest Zn^+ column
densities, its metal abundances are comparable to other DLAs at z~1.
Measurements of the abundances of Cr, Fe, and Mn help to further pin down the
evolutionary state of the absorber.
