The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of a dwarf irregular galaxy called ESO 461-036.
This Hubble image shows the isolated dwarf galaxy ESO 461-036. This image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Four filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / E. Shaya et al.
ESO 461-036 is located approximately 22.3 million light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
This galaxy is extremely extended and shows signs of an anomalous gas cloud within its disk.
It is one of the darkest galaxies known, with a mass-to-light ratio of 89.
Also referred to as KK 246, LEDA 64054, and HIPASS J2003-31 in various catalogues of astronomical sources, it resides within the Local Void, an extremely large region of empty space.
ESO 461-036 is extremely isolated, with no companion galaxies discovered within almost 10 million light-years.
“This lonely galaxy is the only one known for certain to reside in this enormous volume, along with 15 others that have been tentatively identified,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Although the picture appears to be full of galaxies, they are actually beyond this void, and instead form part of other galaxy groups or clusters.”
“Cosmic voids, such as this one, are the spaces within the web-like structure of the Universe wherein very few or no galaxies exist,” they explained.
“Adjacent to the Local Group, this region of empty space is at least 150 million light-years across. For perspective, our own Milky Way Galaxy is estimated to be 150,000 light-years across, making this void immense in its nothingness.”
