Hubble Captures 23 Million-Light-Year Dwarf Galaxy to Probe Cosmic Flow

3 articles · Updated · Space.com · Jun 15

ESO 490-017, an irregular dwarf galaxy 23 million light-years from Earth, appears in a new Hubble image taken for a program tracking how galaxies and clusters move through the universe.
That survey aims to map the "cosmic flow" of massive structures, using images like this one to study motions that are not obvious despite galaxies' vast size and distance.
At about 12,000 light-years across, ESO 490-017 is much smaller than the Milky Way's 100,000-plus-light-year span, helping explain its classification as a dwarf galaxy.
The low-surface-brightness target appears faint and hazy, while foreground stars show bright diffraction spikes and background red, orange and beige smudges reveal more distant galaxies.
The image also underscores Hubble's sensitivity, resolving a dim galaxy in Canis Major along with its stars and multiple far-off galaxies in a single frame.