Explanation: Some 2,000 light-years across, NGC 1705 is small as galaxies go, similar to our Milky Way's own satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. At a much larger distance of 17 million light-years, the stars of NGC 1705 are still easily resolved in this beautiful image constructed from data taken in 1999 and 2000 with the Hubble Space Telescope. Most of the younger, hot, blue stars in the galaxy are seen to be concentrated in a large central star cluster with the older, cooler, red stars more evenly distributed. Possibly 13 billion years old, NGC 1705 could well have been forming stars through out its lifetime while light from its most recent burst of star formation reached Earth only 30 million years ago. This gradually evolving dwarf irregular galaxy lacks organized structures like spiral arms and is thought to be a nearby analog to the first galaxies to form in the early Universe.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: NGC 1705 - star formation - dwarf galaxy - irregular galaxy
Publications with words: NGC 1705 - star formation - dwarf galaxy - irregular galaxy
See also:
- NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410
- Star Factory Messier 17
- APOD: 2023 August 28 Á Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula
- APOD: 2023 July 10 Á Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 6559
- NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
- APOD: 2023 March 21 Á Dark Nebulae and Star Formation in Taurus
- The Tadpole Nebula in Gas and Dust