The Phoenix Dwarf

https://space.com image of the day

Tuesday, September 18, 2018: This strange galaxy, located 1.4 million light-years away from Earth in the Phoenix constellation, is known as the "Phoenix Dwarf." A galactic oddball, the Phoenix Dwarf doesn't fit into the usual classification scheme of galaxies. It has the shape of a spheroidal dwarf galaxy, but it also has a cloud of dust and gas where new stars are born. Spheroidal dwarf galaxies typically contain older stars and not much of the dust and gas required to form new stars. Astronomers at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile captured this view of the Phoenix Dwarf using the Very Large Telescope array. — Hanneke Weitering