Hubble 'traps' a vermin galaxy
June 2, 2017 by Karl Hille
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for its jaw-dropping snapshots of the cosmos. At first glance this Picture of the Week appears to be quite the opposite, showing just a blur of jagged spikes, speckled noise, and weird, clashing colors—but once you know what you are looking at, images like this one are no less breathtaking.
This shows a distant galaxy—visible as the smudge to the lower right—as it begins to align with and pass behind a star sitting nearer to us within the Milky Way. This is an event known as a transit. The star is called HD 107146, and it sits at the center of the frame. Its light has been blocked in this image to make its immediate surroundings and the faint galaxy visible—the position of the star is marked with a green circle.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-hubble-vermin-galaxy.html#jCp
