Cosmic Intruder: Arp 263 Photobombs Hubble's Party

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of the irregular galaxy Arp 263, featuring a stellar photobomber known as BD+17 2217. Arp 263 is believed to have formed from the merger of two galaxies and is located 25 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Two different Hubble investigations contributed data to this image, one studying remnants of past supernovae and the other imaging unobserved peculiar galaxies in the Arp catalog. The image shows unique crisscrossing diffraction spikes around BD+17 2217 due to the interaction of light with Hubble's internal structure and different orientations during data collection.