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Hubble accidentally discovers ancient dwarf galaxy

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Hubble accidentally discovers ancient dwarf galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a small and strangely isolated dwarf galaxy just 30 million light-years away from our own Milky Way.

According astronomers, the discovery was completely by accident.

Luigi Bedin, of the Astronomical Observatory of Padua, and his colleagues were using Hubble to study a globular star cluster called NGC 6752.

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Globular clusters are tightly packed crowds of ancient stars. And when they looked at the images Hubble sent back, they noticed a small galaxy hiding behind the cluster’s brighter stars.

The galaxy, dubbed Bedin 1 by its discoverer, is distinct in its isolation.

There’s a chance this small swirl of stars may be connected to a larger nearby galaxy, but the two are far apart and it’s not clear they have ever interacted.

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