Can You Spot It?

Right in the middle of this image, nestled amongst a smattering of distant stars and even more distant galaxies, lies the newly discovered dwarf galaxy known as Donatiello II. If you cannot quite distinguish the clump of faint stars that is all we can see of Donatiello II in this image, then you are in good company. Donatiello II is one of three newly discovered galaxies that were so difficult to spot that they were all missed by an algorithm designed to search astronomical data for potential galaxy candidates. Even the best algorithms have their limitations when it comes to distinguishing very faint galaxies from individual stars and background noise. In these most challenging identification cases, discovery has to be done the old-fashioned way — by a dedicated human trawling through the data themselves.

More information and download options: http://esahubble.org/videos/potw2306a/

Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Mutlu-Pakdil
Acknowledgement: G. Donatiello