Irregular Galaxy

August 23, 2023

The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a stunning image of a galaxy that defies classification.
ESO 300-16 is an irregular galaxy, a type of galaxy that lacks a clear shape and structure.
It located at a distance of 28.7 million lightyears.

One parsec is equal to 3.26 lightyears, or 30.9 trillion kilometres.

A megaparsec is one million parsecs.

The galaxy is located in the constellation of Eridanus, contains a bubble of blue gas at its core and has a backdrop of many distant galaxies.
ESO 300-16 was captured as part of an imaging campaign known as Every Known Nearby Galaxy, which aims to create a complete inventory of Hubble images of all galaxies within 10 megaparsecs of the Earth, or 6 million lightyears.
- Almost 75% of such galaxies have been imaged already.