Hubble's Surprising Discovery: Irregular Galaxy ESO 174-1

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a detailed image of the irregular galaxy ESO 174-1, located 11 million light-years away. This image is part of a program to study all known galaxies within 32 million light-years, using the telescope's downtime for observing hard-to-schedule celestial bodies. ESO 174-1 appears as a bright cloud of stars with a faint, meandering tendril of dark gas and dust. The program aims to resolve the brightest stars and basic properties of every known galaxy within 10 megaparsecs, helping maximize Hubble's observing time.