The brilliant cascade of stars through the middle of this image is the galaxy ESO 318-13 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in this image from 2012. Despite being located millions of light-years from Earth, the stars captured in this image are so bright and clear one could almost attempt to count them.
ESO 318-13 is sandwiched between a
vast collection of bright celestial objects. Several stars near and far dazzle
in comparison to the neat dusting contained within the galaxy. One that
particularly stands out is located near the center of the image, and looks like
an extremely bright star located within the galaxy. This is, however, a trick
of perspective. The star is located in the Milky Way, our own galaxy, and it
shines so brightly because it is so much closer to us than ESO 318-13.
There are also a number of tiny glowing
disks scattered throughout the frame that are more distant galaxies. In the top
right corner, an elliptical galaxy can be clearly seen, a galaxy which is much
larger but more distant than ESO 318-13. Peeking through ESO 318-13, near the
right-hand edge of the image, is a distant spiral galaxy.
Galaxies are largely made up of empty space; the stars within them only take up
a small volume, and providing a galaxy is not too dusty, it can be largely
transparent to light coming from the background. This makes overlapping
galaxies like these quite common.
Image
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble
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