esahubble_heic1211a July 10th, 2012
Credit: NASA, ESA, and T. Brown (STScI)
Astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to unmask the dim, star-starved dwarf galaxy Leo IV. This Hubble image demonstrates why astronomers had a tough time spotting this small-fry galaxy: it is practically invisible. The image shows how the handful of stars from the sparse galaxy are virtually indistinguishable from the background. Residing 500 000 light-years from Earth, Leo IV is one of more than a dozen ultra-faint dwarf galaxies found lurking around our Milky Way galaxy. These galaxies are dominated by dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up the bulk of the Universes mass.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1211a/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
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