This amazing photo of the Hubble Space Telescope wide-angle camera 3 displays a lonely dwarf galaxy distant 100 million light years from Earth. The image shows the ESO 338-4 compact blue dwarf galaxy living in the Southern Crown constellation.
Blue dwarf compact galaxies are called so because of the stellar birth regions observed in the nuclei. One such patch is visible in ESO 338-4 and is filled with young blue stars, greedily absorbing hydrogen. These massive stars are doomed to short existence, although they have large hydrogen reserves. Nuclear reactions will continue for millions of years.
Young blue stars, located in a cloud of dust and gas (the center of the photo), appeared as a result of the recent galactic fusion. This led to the destruction of dust and gas clouds around ESO 338-4 and activated the birth of a new star population.
