Hiding in the night sky: This striking NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the galaxy UGC 477, located just over 110 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces (The Fish). UGC 477 is a low surface brightness (LSB) galaxy. First proposed in 1976 by Mike Disney, the existence of LSB galaxies was confirmed only in 1986 with the discovery of Malin 1. LSB galaxies like UGC 477 are more diffusely distributed than galaxies such as Andromeda and the Milky Way. With surface brightnesses up to 250 times fainter than the night sky, these galaxies can be incredibly difficult to detect. Most of the matter present in LSB galaxies is in the form of hydrogen gas, rather than stars. Unlike the bulges of normal spiral galaxies, the centres of LSB galaxies do not contain large numbers of stars. Astronomers suspect that this is because LSB galaxies are mainly found in regions devoid of other galaxies, and have therefore experienced fewer galactic interactions and mergers capable of triggering high rates of star formation. LSB galaxies such as UGC 477 instead appear to be dominated by dark matter, making them excellent objects to study to further our understanding of this elusive substance. However, due to an underrepresentation in galactic surveys — caused by their characteristic low brightness — their importance has only been realised relatively recently.

Name: UGC 477
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Pisces
Distance: 110 million light years
Release date: 4 April 2016, 06:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

A case of suspended animation?: At first glance this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image seems to show an array of different cosmic objects, but the speckling of stars shown here actually forms a single body — a nearby dwarf galaxy known as Leo A. Its few million stars are so sparsely distributed that some distant background galaxies are visible through it. Leo A itself is at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years from Earth and a member of the Local Group of galaxies; a group that includes the Milky Way and the well-known Andromeda galaxy. Astronomers study dwarf galaxies because they are very numerous and are  simpler in structure than their giant cousins. However, their small size makes them difficult to study at great distances. As a result, the dwarf galaxies of the Local Group are of particular interest, as they are close enough to study in detail. As it turns out, Leo A is a rather unusual galaxy. It is one of the most isolated galaxies in the Local Group, has no obvious structural features beyond being a roughly spherical mass of stars, and shows no evidence for recent interactions with any of its few neighbours. However, the galaxy’s contents are overwhelmingly dominated by relatively young stars, something that would normally be the result of a recent interaction with another galaxy. Around 90% of the stars in Leo A are less than eight billion years old — young in cosmic terms! This raises a number of intriguing questions about why star formation in Leo A did not take place on the “usual” timescale, but instead waited until it was good and ready.

Name: Leo A
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Size : Dwarf
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Leo
Release date: 11 April 2016, 06:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA  Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

Elegance conceals an eventful past: The elegant simplicity of NGC 4111, seen here in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, hides a more violent history than you might think. NGC 4111 is a lenticular, or lens-shaped, galaxy, lying about 50 million light-years from us in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). Lenticular galaxies are an intermediate type of galaxy between an elliptical and a spiral. They host aged stars like ellipticals and have a disk like a spiral. However, that’s where the similarities end: they differ from ellipticals because they have a bulge and a thin disk, but are different from spirals because lenticular discs contain very little gas and dust, and do not feature the many-armed structure that is characteristic of spiral galaxies. In this image we see the disc of NGC 4111 edge-on, so it appears as a thin sliver of light on the sky. At first sight, NGC 4111 looks like a fairly uneventful galaxy, but there are unusual features that suggest it is not such a peaceful place. Running through its centre, at right angles to the thin disc, is a series of filaments, silhouetted against the bright core of the galaxy. These are made of dust, and astronomers think they are associated with a ring of material encircling the galaxy’s core. Since it is not aligned with the galaxy’s main disc, it is possible that this polar ring of gas and dust is actually the remains of a smaller galaxy that was swallowed up by NGC 4111 long ago.

Name: NGC 4111
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Lenticular
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Distance: 50 million light years
Release date: 18 April 2016, 06:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

A glittering sphere of stars: This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the simple beauty of NGC 339, a massive intermediate age star cluster  in the southern constellation of Tucana (The Toucan). NGC 339 is part of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a dwarf galaxy that lies around 200 000 light-years away from us. Along with our own galaxy, the Milky Way, the SMC is one of a collection of neighbouring galaxies known as the Local Group. By measuring the brightnesses and colours of the stars of NGC 339,  astronomers were able to estimate the overall age of the cluster — a  method that places NGC 339 at around 6.5 billion years old. This makes it only half the age of the more common globular clusters. The relationship between massive  intermediate age star clusters, such as NGC 339,  and the true globular  clusters are not fully understood yet. So far none of these type of clusters has been found in the Milky Way. In this very detailed image, it is also possible to see a number of galaxies. They appear as fuzzy, extended blobs, contrasting with the sharp stars that make up NGC 339. Most obvious here are two elliptical galaxies, one towards the top left of the image and another in the centre right. These galaxies are not associated with NGC 339 but lie far in the background, across the vast expanse of the cosmos.

Name: NGC 339
Type: Local Universe : Star : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Star Clusters
Constellation: Tucana
Distance: 200000 light years
Release date: 25 April 2016, 06:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)