Scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have looked at a dwarf galaxy called SBS 1415+437 with unprecedented clarity.
This image shows the compact dwarf galaxy SBS 1415+437. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / Alessandra Aloisi, STScI / Nick Rose.
SBS 1415+437 is a cometary blue compact dwarf galaxy located about 45.3 million light-years away in the constellation Boötes.
It was discovered in 1995 by a team of astronomers led by Dr Trinh Thuan of the University of Virginia.
Scientists initially thought that SBS 1415+437 was a truly young galaxy that did not start to form stars until 100 million years ago, but a recent study has suggested that the galaxy is in fact older, containing stars 1.3 billion years old.
Starbursts are an area of ongoing research for astronomers — short-lived and intense periods of star formation, during which huge amounts of gas within a galaxy are hungrily used up to form newborn stars.
They have been seen in gas-rich disc galaxies, and in some lower-mass dwarfs.
However, it is still unclear whether all dwarf galaxies experience starbursts as part of their evolution.
It is possible that dwarf galaxies undergo a star formation cycle, with bursts occurring repeatedly over time.
SBS 1415+437, also known as PGC 51017 or CG 0389, is an interesting target for another reason.
Dwarf galaxies like this are thought to have formed early in the Universe, producing some of the very first stars before merging together to create more massive galaxies.
Dwarf galaxies which contain very few of the heavier elements formed from having several generations of stars, like SBS 1415+437, remain some of the best places to study star-forming processes similar to those thought to occur in the early Universe.
However, it seems that our patch of the Universe may not contain any galaxies that are currently undergoing their first burst of star formation.
Amateur astronomer Nick Rose submitted a version of the image to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.
