Azerbaijan National Academy of Science

The Hubble Space Telescope snapped an image of UGC 695, a dim galaxy located 30 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus.

UGC 695, which is 30 million light-years away within the constellation Cetus (the Sea Monster), also known as the Whale, is a low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxy.

NASA says the brightness of these galaxies is less than the background brightness of Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them hard to spot in space. This dim state is caused by the relatively small number of stars within them and most of the baryonic matter in these galaxies is present in the form of massive clouds of dust and gas.

LSB galaxies are similar to dwarf galaxies, because they have a high fraction of dark matter in comparison to the number of stars they have. Astronomers are trying to determine how LSB galaxies formed and why they’re less bright in space.

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