Close-up: The Irregular Dwarf Galaxy IC 1613 | VLT Survey Telescope

Close-up: The Irregular Dwarf Galaxy IC 1613 in Cetus | VLT Survey Telescope

This image, captured with the OmegaCAM camera on the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile, shows an unusually clean small galaxy. IC 1613 contains very little cosmic dust, allowing astronomers to explore its contents with great clarity.

The irregular dwarf galaxy IC 1613 contains around 100 million stars and is a member of our Local Group of galaxies. This also includes our Milky Way, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, and the Magellanic Clouds. It is at a distance of 2.4 million light-years and contains several examples of Cepheid variable stars—key calibrators of the cosmic distance ladder. The bulk of its stars were formed about 7 billion years ago and it does not appear to be undergoing star formation at the present day, unlike other very active dwarf irregulars, such as the Large and Small Magellanic clouds.

Learn about the European Southern Observatory's VLT Survey Telescope:

https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/surveytelescopes/vst/

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Acknowledgement: VST/OmegaCAM Local Group Survey

Duration: 50 seconds
Release Date: Jan. 27, 2016

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