A cosmic crowd! Incredible Hubble image reveals a suite of astronomical objects including an interloper

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope contains a multitude of astronomical objects. In the background, galaxies of various shapes and sizes - from stately spirals to fuzzy ellipticals - can be seen, and in the foreground, bright stars with diffraction spikes are visible.

UGC 7983, a dwarf irregular galaxy located 30 million light-years away in the Virgo constellation, dominates the image's centre. The small galaxy is believed to be similar to the earliest galaxies in the Universe.

This image also conceals an astronomical interloper. A minor asteroid, only a handful of kilometres across, can be seen streaking across the upper left-hand side of this image. The trail of the asteroid is visible as four streaks of light separated by small gaps. These streaks of light represent the four separate exposures that were combined to create this image, the small gaps between each observation being necessary to change the filters inside Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Also visible in this Hubble image is a minor asteroid, only a few kilometres in size, which appears as four streaks of light in the upper left corner. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), these streaks are the result of four separate exposures that were combined to create the image, with small gaps between each observation to allow for the changing of filters in the Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Capturing an asteroid was a fortunate side effect of a larger effort to observe every known galaxy close to our Milky Way, ESA said in a statement.

1/ Our Picture of the Week may not seem much at first glance, but it actually hosts a remarkable suite of objects, from stately spiral to fuzzy elliptical galaxies, and from bright foreground stars much closer to home to even an astronomical interloper — a minor asteroid. pic.twitter.com/0drEUIRt0V

— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) January 16, 2023