Peek into cosmic depths: Can you spot a dwarf galaxy in the middle of this Hubble image?

This latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the newly discovered dwarf galaxy called Donatiello II. In the centre of the image lies a relatively small and irregularly-shaped galaxy, formed of many very small stars and a few slightly larger, bright stars, all surrounded by a very faint glow that marks the borders of the galaxy.

According to the ESA Hubble team, 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. In such cases, the discovery has to be done the old-fashioned way, by a person going through the data themselves.

The data that enabled these discoveries was collected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES), an intense observation effort that spanned six years, and was carried out using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which is mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-metre Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab.

Here, the discoveries were made possible by data gathered by the six-year-long Dark Energy Survey (DES), which was carried out using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) attached to the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, which is part of the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab program.

The above image comes from an observation programme from Hubble. A team led by Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil conducted an independent investigation using Hubble to capture long-exposure images of several dim galaxies, including Donatiello II. The images allowed them to affirm the connection of their target galaxies with NGC 253, thereby providing independent verification of Donatiello's discovery and presenting this new Picture of the Week.

1/ 👀 Can you spot it? Right in the middle of this image lies a newly discovered dwarf galaxy called Donatiello II. If you cannot quite distinguish the clump of faint stars then you are in good company. pic.twitter.com/AkIMJOXHht

— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) February 6, 2023