Hubble captures a glittering swarm in a tiny irregular galaxy
NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a striking image of the faint dwarf irregular galaxy ESO 490-017, about 23 million light-years away in Canis Major and roughly 12,000 light-years across. The portrait reveals a swarm of stars against a hazy backdrop with foreground diffraction spikes and background galaxies, part of a program piecing together how galaxies move and the cosmic flow of the universe.