This is not the first time that NGC 1705 has actually been imaged by Hubble– astronomers peered into the heart of the galaxy in 1999 using Hubbles workhorse electronic camera at the time, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. This instrument was replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 during the final and 5th Space Shuttle mission to Hubble in 2009, and the more recent instrument has offered a richer and much more in-depth portrait of NGC 1705 than the 1999 observation.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & & NASA, R. Chandar
The dwarf galaxy NGC 1705 is featured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This small galaxy lies in the southern constellation Pictor, and is approximately 17 million light-years from Earth. NGC 1705 is a cosmic oddball– it is small, irregularly shaped, and has recently undergone a spate of star development understood as a starburst.
Regardless of these eccentricities, NGC 1705 and other dwarf irregular galaxies like it can offer valuable insights into the total evolution of galaxies. Dwarf irregular galaxies tend to include couple of aspects besides hydrogen or helium, and are considered to be comparable to the earliest galaxies that populated the Universe.
The information displayed in this image come from a series of observations created to reveal the interaction in between stars, star clusters, and ionized gas in nearby star-forming galaxies. By observing a specific wavelength of light known as H-alpha with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3, astronomers intended to find countless emission nebulae– regions developed when hot, young stars shower the clouds of gas surrounding them in ultraviolet light, triggering them to glow.
By ESA/Hubble
January 31, 2022
